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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There was no bubble bursting when the scene set on No. 20 BYU men's basketball's 81-67 loss to No. 25 Texas Tech in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament.
But there was a pop.
Pop Isaacs had 22 points, three rebounds and two assists; and Chance McMillian added 17 points and eight rebounds as the fourth-seeded Red Raiders blitzed early and held off BYU by 14 points Thursday at the T-Mobile Center.
Kerwin Walton supplied 12 points and seven rebounds for Texas Tech (23-9), and Joe Toussaint and Robert Jennings each scored 10.
Jaxson Robinson had 18 points and five rebounds to lead the Cougars, who shot just 7-of-35 from 3-point range and trailed by as much as 23 in the first half before attempting to rally.
Richie Saunders added 12 points and six rebounds off the bench; and Fousseyni Traore totaled 13 points, three rebounds and two assists for BYU (23-10).
"Ton of credit to Texas Tech. They played great tonight," BYU coach Mark Pope said. "I thought they were really focused. I thought they were completely dialed in. .... We were disappointed with how things went; certainly disappointed with the outcome. Sometimes you're out on the court and it feels like it's so hard to make progress, and there were a number of statistical reasons for that, but it was a really frustrating morning for us."
The Cougars were playing a second game in as many days after downing UCF 87-73 a day prior. Texas Tech finished the regular season on a three-game winning streak, helping the Red Raiders clinch the No. 4 seed and a double-bye into the conference tournament.
But that's no excuse for Texas Tech, which rallied from a 16-point second-half deficit to beat BYU 85-78 at home in the two teams' only meeting in the regular season. In the rematch, the Red Raiders thoroughly bested the Cougars, outrebounding the lower seed 42-34 and outshooting the country's second-most prolific 3-point shooting team 9-7 from the perimeter.
"Their guards did a really good job of coming down and rebounding," said BYU's Spencer Johnson, who finished with 7 points and a team-high seven rebounds. "One thing we can learn from that is we actually have to get a hit. I think a lot of us got caught ball-watching. We would watch the shot go up and we wouldn't hit our guy and they would come in and hit us first; that really burned us, man. That's something we can learn. We've got to set the tone by hitting our guy and keeping them off the glass."
For Texas Tech, Thursday's game was personal, Walton said after the game, saying the Red Raiders "came in locked in" after hearing some comments from BYU's side that "turnt us up a little bit."
"We heard certain things like they were ready for us and excited to see us," he said, "but I don't think they were ready — they didn't know how ready we were for them. This is something we have been talking about all year because Mac and the rest of the team, he truly believes in us; and as long as we believe in each other and play together, we're going to make a lot of great things happen."
Added Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland with a chuckle: "Great answer, by the way. Could have gone both ways."
Unlike Wednesday's second-round game against UCF, when BYU jumped out to a 14-0 start that swelled to 21-3, the Cougars opened the quarterfinals in reverse.
The Red Raiders connected on four of their first five shots, including 2-of-2 from 3-point range, en route to a 12-2 advantage just four minutes in.
COUGS ON THE RUN.
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) March 14, 2024
1⃣3⃣ unanswered points from @BYUMBB brings this one within single digits in the final five minutes.
📺 ESPN2 pic.twitter.com/9hwdlE4e2p
Isaacs and Walton stretched the lead to 33-15 with back-to-back triples with 6:34 left in the half, and Walton added another moments later as the Red Raiders shot 7-of-11 from deep en route to a 51.7% first-half shooting clinic.
The fourth-seeded Raiders were also clinical on the glass, outrebounding BYU 26-17 and limiting the Cougars to seven offensive boards en route to a 42-23 halftime lead — BYU's second-worst halftime deficit of the year, behind a 20-point deficit Jan. 17 at Oklahoma State.
BYU responded reasonably well after the break, shooting 52.9% while Texas Tech missed its first five 3-point attempts.
Traore drove to the rim to cap a 10-0 run that pulled the Cougars within 62-50 with 6:14 on the clock, and Robinson hit his fourth 3-pointer less than a minute later that cut the deficit inside single digits, 62-53.
BYU outscored Texas Tech 44-39 in the second half, but Toussaint silenced the 15-0 run with a 3-pointer, and Williams' 3-pointer on the next possession helped the Red Raiders pull away for good to clinch a spot in Friday's Big 12 Tournament semifinals.
