PROVO — Eric Mika scored 16 of his game-high 27 points in the second half Saturday night, and TJ Haws added 19 points to help the BYU men's basketball team pull away for an 85-77 win over Loyola Marymount.

Mika also had nine rebounds and a career-high four blocked shots for BYU (16-7, 7-3 WCC), which got 11 points from Nick Emery and 10 points and eight rebounds from Yoeli Childs.

“The second half, I think we did a good job of staying focused the entire time,” Mika said. “We had mistakes … but I thought we responded well to the physicality, got to the line, shared the ball and got it done.”

Buay Tuach led Loyola Marymount (10-11, 3-7 WCC) with 21 points and five rebounds, and teammates Steven Haney and Brandon Brown supplied 17 points apiece.

Brown’s jumper during the Lions’ 6-0 run gave the visitors a 40-39 lead in the final minute of the first half, but BYU responded with a final flurry to take a 43-40 lead at halftime on Emery’s 10th point of the game with 6 seconds remaining of a game that seemed to regularly stop and restart with a string of whistles.

“They didn’t really surprise us. They came out very physical in the first game, and I think we knew they were going to do the same thing tonight,” Haws said. “Our physicality was the same as last time, and I thought we were more ready this time.”

Haws knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers to open the second half, then heated up for his third trey as BYU held the Lions without a field goal for nearly eight minutes to pull away for a 62-52 lead with 10 minutes remaining.

LMU pulled within six, 73-67, on Brown’s 3-pointer with 5:52 remaining. But Elijah Bryant, who finished with eight points, eight rebounds and three assists, responded with the Cougars’ first jumper in nearly two minutes, and the visitors could get no closer as BYU closed out the game with 12-of-22 foul shots in the second half.

“It was a pretty physical game. I thought they were really aggressive, on the defensive end and the offensive end,” BYU coach Dave Rose said. “It was more of a reactionary game, and not really a game you could dictate. They were so aggressive and always trying to make plays on the ball. At times we were hesitant, but I thought for the most part we attacked pretty well.”

Both teams combined for 35 turnovers, including 20 from BYU in its first game since a surprise 76-68 loss at Santa Clara on Thursday night.

Here are three quick thoughts on the game.

Defense optional, or not

BYU made its first seven field goal attempts of the game, but the Lions drained three of their first four 3-pointers to take a 13-11 lead just under five minutes into the game as both teams couldn’t miss.

After weathering the storm, the Cougars began to pull away with a 15-8 run that included Steven Beo’s 3-pointer with 12:11 remaining in the first half to go up 21-16. But a bigger moment in that scoring spree was Mika’s block against Buay Tuach, which was spurred by Beo’s hustle on the other end after canning the Cougars’ first triple of the game.

BYU finally pushed its lead to double-digits midway through the second half by holding the Lions without a field goal for nearly eight minutes after the break. Mika tied a career high with four blocked shots, and the Cougars scored 28 points in transition to ice the win.

“All their bigs come in and they know they have to play hard,” Mika said. “If they are going to foul, it’s whatever as long as they are trying to get the ball. That’s how they play; they are super aggressive, super physical.”

Have a turnover

In a physical game officiated by a three-man squad that didn’t know it would be together until moments before tipoff due to illness, both teams combined for 35 turnovers, with 23 coming from the home team.

On the other end, BYU forced Loyola Marymount into 12 turnovers, including six steals.

“I’ve always felt like if guys are aggressive and they feel like they have freedom to make a play, we can handle turnovers pretty well,” Rose said. Somewhere we’ve got some type of a disconnect in which guys feel like they need to pull something out. We’ll just have to see what guys are thinking, and move on from there.”

Teams plays physical with BYU because they know they can

For the second-straight game, Rose remarked about how physical a WCC team has played the Cougars.

BYU shot 44 foul shots, but made just 28 free throws, while the visiting Lions went 14 of 25 from the charity stripe and had one player foul out and two more finish with four fouls.

Unlike in the Cougars’ loss to Santa Clara, they handled it well.

“You don’t really get tired, so that’s good,” Haws joked about the 44 free throws. “But it’s hard when a team is that physical and the game is stopping and going; it’s hard to get into a rhythm. But I thought we did a good job of pushing when we had opportunities.”

Related topics