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(Tulsa, OK)
After agreeing to push back the "payback" game in the two-game series with Tulsa, Dave Rose leads his BYU Cougars into a key nonconference clash tonight on KSL Newsradio.
The Tulsa Golden Hurricane have the nation's 9th longest homecourt win streak at 18 games (BYU leads with 53 straight home wins), and TU's 28-game nonconference home win streak is the 11th longest streak nationally--just behind BYU's 29 in a row.
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The two teams last met three years ago tonight in Provo, and in order to allow Tulsa to schedule a game in the interim with Oklahoma, Rose moved back the return visit, which also allows Bartlesville, Oklahoma native Noah Hartsock to play a "homecoming " game in his freshman season with the Cougars. Hartsock was a Bartlesville High School junior when teammate Sam Mitchell was a senior. Mitchell is now a senior forward coming off the bench for Doug Wojcik's Tulsa team. Wojcik jokingly told me this morning that Hartsock "blew us off" when they were recruiting Mitchell, who was Wojcik's first commitment as Tulsa head coach.
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BYU and Tulsa are scheduled to cross paths again next season as the Cougars take part in the four-game Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic. The four upper-division teams taking part are BYU, Tulsa, Nevada and Nebraska, along with four smaller schools. BYU will host two of the lower-division teams in Provo, then face two of the "name" teams at the Orleans Arena in Vegas.
The Findlay Toyota people stage two tournaments annually--the Las Vegas Classic, in late December, and the Las Vegas Invitational, in late November. Last season, BYU played in the Invitational, beating Louisville and losing to North Carolina at the Orleans.
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The NCAA usually releases its weekly stat update on Mondays, but may have delayed it most recent update during the holiday break, since its stats have not been posted since December 22nd.
In the latest MWC stats (updated after Monday night's games), BYU leads the league in scoring margin, field goal percentage, three-point field goals made, rebounding margin, assists per game, and assist/turnover ratio.
BYU has three of the leauge's top ten scorers, including the MWC's top two scorers in Jonathan Tavernari (18.1ppg) and Lee Cummard (17.7ppg).
Interestingly, BYU has the conference's leading senior scorer (Cummard), junior scorer (Tavernari), and sophomore scorer (Jimmer Fredette, at 14.5ppg).
Tavernari is in the MWC top 5 in scoring, rebounding, steals and three-point field goals made.
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As BYU looks to bounce back from the Arizona State loss tonight, consider this: in Dave Rose's three-plus seasons, BYU has lost back-to-back regular season games only once, back in 2006. BYU lost to Michigan State at Auburn Hills, then followed that game with an overtime loss at Lamar. Stated another way, Rose's Cougars have faced regular season "bounce-back" situations 20 times during his tenure, and on 19 occasions, BYU has responded with a win--and that, my friends, is pretty darned impressive.
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With BYU on the verge of entering the Top 25 and already penciled in as a "Bracketology" fixture, ESPN.com's Andy Katz includes BYU in his list of "Eight places to be this week:"
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Provo, Utah, Saturday: BYU puts its 53-game home-court winning streak -- best in the nation -- to the test against Wake Forest.
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