PROVO — For the first three minutes of the BYU men’s basketball team’s exhibition finale against Colorado College, the Cougars seemingly played with a lid over the hoop.

The lid disappeared really fast, though.

Zac Seljaas poured in 19 points on six 3-pointers, and Elijah Bryant added 12 points, nine rebounds and three assists to help the Cougars rout Division III Colorado College, 95-35 in an exhibition game Wednesday night in the Marriott Center.

“That’s just basketball; you have to shoot with confidence,” Bryant said. “We got one to go, and then they all started going.”

Yoeli Childs supplied 11 points, 17 rebounds and three assists for the Cougars, and TJ Haws scored 13 with four rebounds.

BYU opened with a nearly three-minute scoring drought before Haws and Seljaas nailed three-straight 3-pointers around the 17-minute mark.

The Cougars made five 3-pointers before their first 2-point bucket, a jumper by Childs with 14:11 left in the first half.

“It’s a process of getting out there, being ready for the moment, and being ready for what we do and how we are doing it,” said BYU coach Dave Rose, who played 11 players and all 11 scored. “When we were going into the game, this is what I hoped would happen: that we got a lot of guys in, shoot well from three, from the floor, and then hold them down.”

Haws had 13 points in the first half, Seljaas 10 and Childs added seven points and nine rebounds as the Cougars stormed to a 48-14 halftime advantage.

Seljaas knocked down back-to-back-to-back triples to open the second half, and the only thing left for the Cougars to do was put down a few rim-rattling dunks (like by Childs and Kajon Brown).

“We focused on defense in the second half,” Bryant said. “It’s easy to have a mindset of making a lot of mistakes because we were up. But late in the season, we will need to be able to come out and put a team down.”

The Cougars put the rout away with a 20-3 run for a 77-22 lead with 9:49 remaining and cruised to the win.

CooXooEii Black led Colorado College with six points, seven rebounds and two steals, and Chris Martin scored nine for the Tigers.

Here are three thoughts on BYU’s final exhibition before the regular season tips off Saturday.

BYU played a three-guard lineup, and still pulled up from deep

The Cougars took advantage of size with a three-guard lineup that included TJ Haws at the point, and Elijah Bryant and Zac Seljaas on either wing to bury the 3-pointer early and often. The standout shooters canned 15 3-pointers in just over 10 minutes of game time, and quickly buried the Tigers 38-11 after 15 minutes.

The BYU offense was humming so smoothly that it didn’t notice that starter Luke Worthington didn’t score until the 7:41 mark of the second half.

“We knew they were going to play zone, and I wanted to see how that (lineup) would work,” Rose said. “They were concerned about Yoeli and content to keep two guys on him, and it opened up a lot of shots.

“It’s a good thing TJ buried that first one, or it might’ve stayed for longer.”

With Nick Emery out indefinitely as the NCAA considers his case for allegations of improper benefits, the three sharpshooters should see plenty of time in BYU’s non-conference play. Whether the “bomb’s away” strategy works against the likes of Princeton, Texas-Arlington and Utah is to be determined.

But don’t expect the tactic to go away.

“The threes we were shooting were the shots we need to shoot. We just need to make them,” Rose said. “You’ve got to make shots. We need that 3-point line to come back as an advantage for us. It was for quite a few years, and the last couple of years, we’ve been behind. We gave up too many threes and didn’t make enough.

“Tonight was a good number. You’ll win a lot of games with that.”

Now they play for keeps

If wins over New Mexico, Division II Westminster and Division III Colorado College don’t do it, the Cougars’ season tips off for real Saturday at 7 p.m. MT against the Delta Devils.

Ready or not, here comes the season. But are the Cougars ready?

“I feel more ready than ever, and I think our team does, too,” Worthington said. “I think it was pretty valuable to go on the road to New Mexico into a good atmosphere against a good team, and then to play two exhibitions here. We really got to know each other, and we just play well together.

“We’re as prepared as we can be, and I just hope these wins carry over into the real season — when the games count.”

Bryant, Worthington named team captains

Bryant and Worthington were named team captains for the 2017-18 season, as announced by Rose earlier Wednesday.

The inside-out duo represent two of the more experienced players on the BYU roster, which has no seniors.

“I’m really excited that I’ve been able to garner some respect from my teammates. More than anything, it’s a position to influence other guys for good.

“Me and Elijah have a lot of years — probably more years than a lot of other guys. We’ve been in different places, transfers or missions, and I think that’s very valuable when it comes to helping out younger guys. We want them to feel comfortable on and off the floor, and that’s my primary goal.”

Worthington, who recently returned from a two-year LDS mission to Chile, is one of just threes players at BYU with NCAA Tournament experience (Dalton Nixon was a freshman at BYU in 2014-15, and transfer McKay Cannon played on Weber State’s Big Sky-title winning team two years ago). The junior from Mequon, Wisconsin started 21 games as a sophomore in 2014-15, when the Cougars received an at-large bid.

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