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PROVO -- Thursday night BYU travelled through its familiar rough marina before reaching smooth sailing to their 14-point victory (89-75) against UC Santa Barbara.
Senior forward Noah Hartsock recognizes the inefficiency of having to compensate for a white caped beginning.
“Hopefully we can correct (our slow beginnings) and focus on what we need to do,” Hartsock said. “Then we get out there, we get into the games, really get a good start. I think that’s really what we need to start working on is getting a good start and just playing the whole 40 minutes.”
As expected, UC Santa Barbara’s two overall leading scorers — James Nunnally, 16.2 ppg; and Orlando Johnson, 20.9 ppg — came ready to shoot.
In the first four minutes alone, Johnson sunk two 3- pointers and one jumper, and two defensive rebounds were snatched up on the side as well. Johnson and Nunnally tied for the team-high 22 points.
“After the first six minutes of the game, I thought that we did a much better job on (Johnson),” BYU head coach Dave Rose said. “He got off to a good start and then we settled in and did a better guarding him as a team. But you could still see that there’s sometimes where you’re just at his mercy — same with Nunnally.”
BYU echoed UCSB’s ability to find terrain for their shooters. BYU’s overall two leading scorers Noah Hartsock (17 ppg) and Matt Carlino (14 ppg) were the leading scorers for the game, with 21 and 22 points respectively.
In addition to Carlino’s new career high in total points, Carlino also walked off the court with the game high in assists, six.
Only three games into his NCAA experience, and now standing at the wheel, Carlino is having to quickly learn how to fill the Sperrys that Rose picked out for him over a year ago.
“I’m getting more comfortable every game with these guys,” Carlino said. “I think we’re getting a lot better. We just beat two good teams. So it’s just time, time together on the floor.”
Though the greatest storm was at the beginning, other dark clouds gathered throughout the game. There was an 8:56 field goal drought for the Cougars. At 12:17 left in the second half, Brock Zylstra made a 3-pointer. Then with 3:21 left in the game, Brandon Davies made a layup adding the next field goal for the team.
The Cougars used the charity stripe as their means for prosperity during the drought. Shooting 11 of 12 (6 of the 11 coming from Abouo, who ended the game 9-9 on the line) on the line, BYU used the Gauchos’ aggressive defense to replenish the scoreboard for the Cougs.
“They did a good job of contesting every pass, every shot, and we got ourselves to the foul line quite a bit because of that,” Rose said.
Ultimately, BYU’s ability to optimize on points from their leading scorers Hartsock and Carlino, and from free throw shooters such as Abouo, led them onto the dock of victory.
