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PROVO, Utah (AP) - Brigham Young had the perfect game plan to try to stop the nation's leading scorer:
Jimmer Fredette, last year's national scoring champ.
Before the shooting star left for the NBA, they used him in practice to impersonate Weber State's Damian Lillard.
Wednesday night, the Cougars' game plan worked to perfection as they held Lillard to 15 points and cruised to a 94-66 victory over the instate opponent. Lillard had been averaging 28.2.
"Our guys know what it is like to play with the leading scorer in the country and tonight we were ready," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "He is a terrific player. I thought we challenged his shots. ... I was really impressed with how we consistently were engaged in trying to make the game hard for him."
While BYU (7-2) shared the load defensively on Lillard, the Cougars got a balanced scoring attack, with six players in double figures.
Noah Hartsock led all scorers with 19 points. He added 12 rebounds and three blocks as BYU dominated inside, outscoring Weber State 42-22 in the paint and blocking nine shots. Nate Austin, Charles Abouo, Brock Zylstra and Stephen Rogers each had 15 points. Brandon Davies had 11, all in the first half.
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It hurt that the Wildcats already were missing leading rebounder Kyle Bullinger, who is out 4-6 weeks with a dislocated elbow. Midway through the first half, forward Frank Otis limped off the court with a knee injury.
"They're big, they're strong and they're old and length was a big factor," Weber State coach Randy Rahe said. "All of a sudden we were playing with three 6-2 guys out there, and they're playing with guys 6-6, 6-7, 6-8."
The Wildcats (5-2) are now 0-19 in Provo. Their men's and women's basketball, volleyball, soccer and football teams are a combined 1-75 in Provo.
Weber State had high hopes things might change Wednesday after Lillard scored a career-high 41 in a double-overtime win Saturday over San Jose State. And the Wildcats, favored to win the Big Sky, had beaten Utah State, which dropped BYU in the opener.
Wednesday, the two teams looked miles apart.
"They took me out of the game," said Lillard, who was 5 of 12 shooting but managed a double-double with 10 rebounds.
"I'm frustrated. Any time you lose it's frustrating, but to get embarrassed as we did it's even more frustrating."
Zylstra scored 10 points in the first 10 minutes for BYU.
Weber State led 10-7 after Darin Mahoney stole an inbounds pass with 15:45 left in the first half. But BYU went on a 13-3 run, fueled by Zylstra and Hartsock, to take a 22-15 lead.
The Cougars ripped off another big spurt, outscoring the Wildcats 18-4 to boost their lead to 40-24 with 4 minutes left in the half. Davies had the most impressive play on the run. He drove strong to the lane, was fouled by Mahoney, and still managed to get the ball in the basket
BYU led 47-34 at halftime and had three players in double figures. Hartsock had a double-double at the break with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
BYU hit three 3-pointers to open the second half to bump its lead to 56-36 with 16:41 remaining.
Scott Bamforth added 14 points for Weber State and Kyle Tresnak had 11. But the Wildcats were clearly hurting depth-wise, forced to use a redshirt freshman in Gelaun Wheelwright.
BYU is just beginning to show its depth.
"The competition on our team is starting to become a real factor in the minutes being played," Rose said. "Competition is the most healthy thing for improvement."
The Cougars face a woeful Utah team on Saturday before a Dec. 17 showdown with No. 6-ranked Baylor.
Fredette won't be around anymore to help, as he said goodbye to his former teammates after Wednesday's game and is headed to Sacramento as the Kings' No. 10 overall pick now that the NBA lockout is over.
"Jimmer is just a great teammate and guys like him," Rose said. "He's not on our team but everybody feels like Jimmer's a friend and you can go talk to him and he'll be free with his time. I'm happy he was around the days we had him. The practice was good for our team. ... We wish him well and are excited for him. I know he's excited."
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
