Cougars lift lid off season with 110-63 win over Houston Christian

PROVO — Before each basketball game, BYU coach Mark Pope draws up a play to give a catch to power forward Fousseyni Traore in the post and find an easy bucket.

On Monday night, he switched things up: If Trevin Knell, who was making his first start in over 500 days after missing the entire 2022-23 season with a shoulder injury, saw momentum downhill, crush it.

The former Woods Cross star was happy to oblige, banging in a 3-pointer 11 seconds into the game.

The Cougars were off and running in their first season in the Big 12.

Spencer Johnson poured in a career-high 20 points to go along with seven assists and five rebounds, and BYU cruised to a 110-63 win over Houston Christian in a season opener Monday night in front of 13,130 fans in the Marriott Center.

And it may not have even his best moment of the night.

"I felt like the guys really came out and were mentally there today. We started the game really hot, on the offensive and defensive end. ... Spencer had a great pregame speech," said Knell, who added 19 points and five rebounds. "We just need to continue that momentum into Friday."

Noah Waterman supplied 16 points and eight rebounds, Jaxson Robinson had 13 points, and Trey Stewart 10 with four assists for the Cougars (1-0).

Marcus Greene led Houston Christian (0-1) with 18 points, and Jay Alvarez supplied 11 points and six rebounds for the Huskies, last year's sixth-place finishers in the Southland Conference with a 10-22 record that included a 7-11 mark in league play.

On an opening night of college basketball where each of the Associated Press Top 25 teams facing Division I opponents were favored by an average of 26 points, BYU wasn't perfect, but took care of business.

Many of those games were blowouts. Others — like Oklahoma State's 64-59 loss to Abilene Christian, Michigan State's 79-76 loss to James Madison, or defending women's basketball champion LSU's 92-78 loss to Colorado — not so much.

BYU was closer to the former than the latter. The bigger tests will come, too, including Friday night against No. 17 San Diego State.

Tonight was simply about lifting the lid on the season, and a reminder to keep the game "sacred."

"It felt great to be back. The past couple of days, everybody has been telling me it's been 500-something days since I played in the Marriott Center," Knell said. "But it feels great to be back in front of that ROC. My teammates were great, they got me open shots and coach ran some great plays for me today to get open.

"Coach talked to me about helping my mental game and physical game, having urgency and having faith. For the past 500 days, I've been urgent getting my body back where it needs to be and getting my shot back to where it needs to be to play. I'm working hard on my feet and defense. Now it's about trusting the process. The coaching staff has a lot of faith in me ... and now I just need to rely on God and get back to that point."

The Cougars shot as high as 63% from the field in the first half and used a 16-2 run to jump out to a 32-10 lead midway through the first half on Robinson's runner at the rim.

They didn't let up.

Knell scored 14 points, including four 3-pointers, in the first half, and BYU shot 46% from the field while out rebounding Houston Christian 32-14 en route to a 56-18 lead at the break.

Just as impressive, the Cougars held the Huskies, formerly known as Houston Baptist, to 25% shooting and without a triple until Greene's make from beyond the arc with 2:04 remaining in the half.

Knell dropped his 19th point — just one off a career high — on his fifth 3-pointer with 15:09 left that pushed the Cougars' lead to 74-28. Moments later, he exited the game with a visible limp before retiring to the exercise bike in the corner with a grimace.

He returned to the bench with no visible limp after a few moments. But his night was over.

The Cougars didn't need him, taking the most 3-pointers in program history (43) and making 15 of them.

"We got 43 threes up, and Trevin didn't even make his goal," Pope quipped. "Trev's supposed to get 10 threes a game. … For us, it's really important that we make teams guard us 15-by-27 and not 15-by-22; that extra 250 feet is going to make the difference in whether we can be really functional offensively, or we can't. That is super important for us, and it's going to be a big step for us. ... We're going to fight to get them up."

Robinson hit a rim-rattling dunk off a jaw-dropping bounce-pass from Khalifa, then dropped his third triple to push BYU's lead to 82-36 midway through the second half to cruise to the finish.

Tipoff from the Marriott Center against the Aztecs is scheduled for 7 p.m. MST Friday on Big 12 Now on ESPN+, about an hour after kickoff of the sixth-ranked BYU women's soccer team's NCAA Tournament opener against Utah State.

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