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The BYU Cougars sit at 5-1 in the West Coast Conference coming off a nice bounce back win over the University of San Diego last Saturday. Things will be getting a little more difficult for the Cougars, BYU will be playing the next three games on the road and it all starts Thursday night against 10th ranked Gonzaga.
The Bulldogs are coming off a devastating buzzer-beating loss against 13th ranked Butler, giving both BYU and Gonzaga last second losses last week as the Cougars lost to St. Mary's when Matthew Dellavedova hit a near half-court shot for the win.
"A lot of guys were like, 'Oh man, that's awful. They just lost like that.' and I was like, 'We just lost like that.'- Matt Carlino
"We just went through that." said sophomore point guard Matt Carlino. "A lot of guys were like, ‘Oh man, that's awful they just lost like that,' and I was like ‘We just lost like that.' It's going to be fun, because they're going to want to get after us."
Against St. Mary's Tyler Haws hit what he supposed was the game winning bucket with 2.5 seconds left to play to give the Cougars a two point lead. "We know exactly what it feels like. They're going to come out ready to go and probably have a little bit of fire under them. We're ready for that and we're excited."
Senior Brock Zylstra has been in a lot of games, "It can do two things to you, it can sting you and you can rely on it or you can bounce back and be angry about it and come out and play better. I would be money they would come back angry and ready to play."
"Teams that don't lose much, when they do get beat, it really stings." said BYU head coach Dave Rose, "I would imagine there's a real sense of emergency about trying to get this thing turned around.
BYU and Gonzaga will tip off Thursday at 9:00 p.m. MT with the pregame coverage on KSL Newsradio starting at 8:00 p.m.
