PROVO — Down a pair of starters in Arizona's Koa Peat and BYU's Richie Saunders, it was the Wildcats' bench who came up big Wednesday night.
The Cougars? Not so much.
Anthony Dell'Orso scored a season-high 22 points, and Ivan Kharchenkov added 18 points and seven rebounds as No. 4 Arizona snapped a two-game losing skid with a 75-68 win over BYU at the McKay Center in Tucson, Arizona.
Jaden Bradley added 12 points and 10 assists for the Wildcats (24-2, 11-2 Big 12), who got 11 points from Brayden Burries and outscored the Cougars' bench 26-6.
AJ Dybantsa poured in a game-high 35 points, seven rebounds and two assists to lead BYU (19-7, 7-6 Big 12); and Robert Wright III scored 13 with four rebounds and three assists.
Kennard Davis Jr. had 10 points, two rebounds and two assists, while Keba Keita pulled down nine boards for the Cougars.
Dybantsa set the BYU freshman scoring record, moving ahead of Danny Ainge's 632 points while averaging 21.2 points in 1977-78.
But when it came to finding answers from an increasingly shortened rotation, BYU coach Kevin Young was at a loss.
In short, absent Richie Saunders after the senior suffered a season-ending ACL injury in the first minute of last Saturday's overtime win over Colorado, the Cougars need to answer the bell.
Dell'Orso rang it for them.
Dell'Orso scored 15 points off the bench including a pair of 3-pointers in the first half to help the Wildcats lead by as much as 39-33 just before the break.
Dybantsa totaled 16 points, three rebounds and two assists, and Wright scored 11 to help the Cougars pull within four.
HAVE YOURSELF A HALF DELLY!!! pic.twitter.com/Uk5whwXc7q
— Arizona Basketball (@ArizonaMBB) February 19, 2026
But Dell'Orso capped his 5-of-9 shooting first half with his third 3-pointer at the buzzer to help the Wildcats to a 42-35 halftime lead.
"Richie brings a lot of scoring, a lot of aggressiveness," Dybantsa said after the game. "So I just tried to mimic what he gave us and try to do what he does."
BYU made just 3-of-10 from the field to open the second half, and Arizona shot up to 57% to take a 13-point lead on Kharchenkov's jumper eight minutes in.
Dybantsa had 19 points in the second half, including a 3-pointer to trim the deficit to seven, 73-66, with two minutes remaining. Davis capped a 7-0 run in just over 90 seconds to pull the Cougars within 73-68 in the final minute.
But Dell'Orso punctuated Arizona's win with an open dunk off a turnover to give the home team a win in the series for the first time in five tries.
"We've just got competitive guys. I think we have a lot of belief in ourselves, no matter what situation we find ourselves in," Young said. "And that was the case tonight against a really good basketball team.
"You have to give them a lot of credit, because they had a lot of guys who stepped up."
