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PROVO — TJ Haws was feeling it Saturday night against Houston.
Unfortunately for him and his BYU basketball teammates, the rest of the Cougars were not.
Corey Davis Jr. poured in 24 points, Cedrick Alley Jr. had 19 points, six rebounds and six assists, and Breaon Brady added 17 points and seven rebounds to help Houston leave Provo with a 76-62 win at BYU in Saturday's final game of the on-campus Men Against Breast Cancer Cougar Cup.
“My coaches gave me the green light,” said Alley, a redshirt freshman playing in the red Cougars' first road game of the season. “They said to come in, play hard, play defense, and play our culture, and it would be an easy game for us. We came in and executed perfectly — and had a game like today.”
Haws scored a career-high 25 points on 9-of-19 shooting, including six 3-pointers, to lead BYU (5-2).
Yoeli Childs added 16 points and nine rebounds, seeing his streak of five-straight games with a double-double end.
"They were better than us to every aspect tonight," Childs said. "They played harder. They hit more shots than us. They came down and made big plays."
The non-Haws-and-Childs Cougars made just seven shots from the field, a big reason why BYU trailed for all but 2 minutes of the game. McKay Cannon and Dalton Nixon scored five each for BYU, who were out-scored by Houston 11-8 off the bench.
"TJ was our guy making big plays tonight," Childs said. "I didn’t step up, other guys didn’t step up. We were just riding on TJ."
Haws made four 3-pointers in the first half to keep the Cougars within five, 37-32 at the break. The red Cougars then blew the game open in the second half, leading by as much as 21 en route to the 14-point win.
"I think our guys were prepared, we had a good plan, and I think that they did a really good job of exploiting the things that we felt like we needed to do to control them," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "When you start to realize that’s what is going to happen, you have to find ways to make the game work for you."
Houston (4-0) held BYU scoreless for over 3 minutes and the Provo Cougars couldn’t make up the difference.
"Mentally, we need to get better. I thought in the second half, they made a run and we didn’t respond," Haws said. "Every good team you play, they are going to make runs and hit tough shots. The really good teams respond. They played harder, and they figure that stuff out.
"They punched us in the mouth in the second half, and they broke us. That can’t happen."
Still, BYU didn’t die. Cannon drained a three to pull the host Cougars back within 12, 65-53 with about 6 minutes remaining. But BYU couldn’t consistently stop the visiting Cougars, a Houston team that shot 53 percent from the field and nailed 10 3-pointers.
Davis scored at the rim to cap a 7-0 run for Houston, pushing the lead back to 72-55 with 3:32 remaining and the red Cougars held off the late charge, even while giving up a 7-0 run to BYU to end the game.
BYU plays three of the next four games away from the Marriott Center, beginning next Wednesday, Nov. 28 at Illinois State. The Cougars will play Dec. 1 at Weber State; tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. MT.
"We had a lot of young guys playing a lot of minutes out there, and hopefully that experience will be good for them," Rose said.
