BYU marksman Tegan Graham proves more than just a shooter in WCC semifinal win

LAS VEGAS — Tegan Graham has felt it all year long for BYU women's basketball.

The graduate transfer from Colgate averaged 43% from 3-point range each of the past two seasons at BYU and became the Cougars' top 3-pointer shooter during the 2021-22 regular season.

On Monday afternoon, she wasn't feeling it. Shooter's shoot, but the native New Zealander wasn't shooting well.

But Graham, who is in her second season with the Cougars, made up for it in more ways than one.

The Wellington, New Zealand, product finished with 11 points, a career-high 11 rebounds, six assists and two blocked shots as No. 15 BYU held off Portland 59-52 Monday to advance to the championship game of the West Coast Conference Tournament against Gonzaga at Orleans Arena.

Not bad for an all-league honorable mention, eh?

Graham's contributions go well beyond the box score, though. She was also the lead defender on Portland's Alex Fowler, the Pilots' 6-foot-2 sophomore from Australia who earned all-WCC first-team honors each of the past two seasons.

But under Graham's guidance — and with help from Paisley Harding and Sara Hamson — Fowler had just 13 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.

"This is one of the best defensive games I've seen from Tegan," BYU coach Jeff Judkins said. "She took a challenge on Fowler, who is a really good player. She did a really good job trying to stop her. You can't stop her, but you can make things difficult, and she really did that."

With Graham guarding her from the opening tip, Fowler shot just 5 of 17 from the field and 2 of 7 from 3-point range in nearly 34 minutes. The lengthy Aussie also had just two offensive rebounds, and BYU outrebounded the Pilots on the glass 47-36 behind Graham's career night and another 10 from Lauren Gustin.

But Graham's performance was special. In many ways, the Kiwi who recently defended her master's degree on equity in women's sports expended so much on the defensive end that it may have impacted her ability on offense.

That wasn't her focus Monday; it didn't have to be, with teammate Shaylee Gonzales scoring 14 of her game-high 20 points in the first half and Harding adding 14 points in the low-scoring contest.

In some ways, neither was stopping Fowler. Slowing her down was enough.

"I think with Fowler, she's just an incredible player; I have a huge respect for her," Graham said. "But I wanted to make everything difficult from the first second. I wanted to set the tone defensively about what the game was going to be like.

"I kind of had her number, and I wanted to start with the intensity."

And when BYU needed a bucket in the worst way, Graham's shooting form returned.

After playing to a 40-40 stalemate after three quarters, Fowler nailed a 3-pointer to cap a 7-0 spurt that put Portland up 46-42 with 5:41 remaining. Things could've gone south in a hurry.

Enter Graham and her Supergirl cape.

The senior swished a 3-pointer 10 seconds later, starting a 10-0 run that helped BYU retake a lead it would never relinquish 52-46 with just over two minutes to go.

The Pilots only hit one field goal in the final 5:31. Fowler was scoreless.

"I'm a shooter; shooter's shoot," Graham said. "I didn't shoot that well tonight, but I have confidence in myself.

"Just let it fly, and have fun."

Graham knew she missed some shots earlier in the game — the kind that she normally doesn't miss, after shooting 40% from the field and 42% from deep during the regular season.

She still took them anyway. Make or miss, you're only as good as your next bucket.

"She knows to take them; I think that's where her maturity comes in," Judkins said. "She's a joy to coach. She asks me so many questions about why we do what we do … but it's a lot of fun."

Outspoken and brash, Graham has also been a uniting force in the Cougars' locker room — perhaps the thing that BYU will miss when she finally moves on.

The senior was contemplating giving up the game when she graduated from Colgate two years ago. One dive into the transfer portal — and a chance messaging incident with BYU assistant coaches and a conversation with longtime friend and BYU alumna Shalae Salmon — later, and Graham, who is not a member of university's sponsoring faith, was headed to Provo to finish her college career with a master's degree in communications and a passion for women's sports coverage.

Which is why when a reporter from USA Today asked the Cougars after Monday's game if they felt disrespected by not being in the NCAA selection committee's top-16 seeds in all three first looks, Graham nearly leaped at the microphone in front of her.

"That's a good question that I would like to know the answer to," Graham said when asked why that was. "All season, we've had a little bit of a chip on our shoulder because of that; we're 26-2 and just got into the top-15 today. There's a little bit of disrespect, but I think our team is really good at not focusing on rankings.

"There's nothing we can do about that; all we can do is win basketball games."

All these Cougars can do is win, which they've done 26 times over, including against Power Five conference schools Arizona State, West Virginia, Florida State, Utah and Washington State, with its lone nonconference slip in overtime at Oklahoma.

All they can do is win a conference title, which they did in the WCC's regular season, BYU's first since 2015. All they can do is win a tournament championship, which they can wrap up with a third win over Gonzaga (2 p.m. MT, ESPNU).

Will it be enough to earn a top-16 seed and host the first two rounds of the NCAA women's basketball tournament? So far, it hasn't been — for a variety of reasons, including the school's inability to host games and practices on Sundays.

"I don't know what more this team could've done," Judkins said. "We scheduled hard. We scheduled six Power Five conference (opponents). We lost to one in overtime, and they shot 32 foul shots and we lost in overtime by three.

"Then nobody wants to play in our league; nobody wants to play Portland. They don't want to play Gonzaga. San Francisco is getting in that realm. If our league is so crappy, then why don't you want to play us?"

BYU is bound for the NCAA Tournament — the only question is the seed line. But will the league's regular-season champion — and potential tournament champ — earn a host bid?

That's unlikely, with less than a week to go until Selection Sunday.

"For us, we've done what you ask us to do," Judkins added. "We scheduled hard, and this year we won. We had three tough games at home, we won them, two neutral games, we won those. What more can we do, as a mid-major?

"We feel like we deserve the opportunity."

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