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PROVO — The Toreros were daring somebody else to make a shot, double-teaming BYU leading scorer Alex Barcello, grabbing his jersey, and making it difficult for him to find an open look at the basket.
Seneca Knight was happy to take that dare.
BYU basketball fans responded in the first home game in over a week with loud cries of "Booooo" hanging down from the rafters.
Wait, no; make that, "Foooooouuuuuuuss."
Knight tied a season high with 14 points with five rebounds and three assists off the bench, and freshman Fousseyni Traore added 14 points and 11 rebounds as BYU men's basketball returned to the Marriott Center with a 79-71 win Thursday night over San Diego.
"Spencer found me on that first shot, and from there on I just got it going," said Knight, who scored in double figures for the second time in four games. I felt like I was about to make everything the rest of the game."
The New Orleans native whose transfer from San Jose State briefly took him back home to LSU before ultimately signing with the Cougars as a junior found his shot at the right time, too, shooting 4 of 5 from the field and 2 of 3 from 3-point range with four free throws and a team-high plus-17 rating.
It was tied for his best offensive outing since pouring in 18 points and seven rebounds in San Jose State's 73-71 loss to Cal Poly last year — one of just four games in which Knight played before opting to transfer out of the Mountain West.
"He's done an unbelievable job, but growing is hard," said BYU coach Mark Pope, who became the first coach in program history to reach 60 wins in his third season. "He's in a new situation, on a top-25 team right now where everything that matters is different, the attention to detail is different. It's a learning process; you don't just walk into a program like we have — you have to learn, how to act, how to carry yourself, what's important, what's not.
"To Seneca's credit, he's been really willing to try and learn what all of that means. We got to see some of that tonight."
Of course, he had some help, too.
Barcello, the now-famously dubbed "best shooter in the nation" by ESPN's Jay Bilas, who was mobbed, muscled and barely minced words against a San Diego defense save for one time? He only scored 22 points with three assists for the Cougars (16-4, 4-1 WCC), who got 10 points and seven rebounds from Gideon George and 9 points and four assists from Te'Jon Lucas.
But for a moment, neither Barcello nor most of his teammates could find the room to operate. With the sixth-year senior star fighting through double teams and extra contact, and his team struggling to make shots around him before Knight's emergence, the night started off anything but bright.
San Diego (10-8, 3-2 WCC), which is tied for second in the league by holding opponents to just 28% from 3-point range, kept the Cougars off the arc until Knight's trey more than five minutes into the game. But the San Jose State transfer buried his second 3-pointer with 13:07 left in the half to give the Cougars their first lead of the game, and Knight singlehandedly capped an 8-0 run with a pair of free throws to go up 15-12 moments later.
"We knew it was going to be a great battle with them tonight. They are a great rebounding team," Barcello said of San Diego. "It was 31-31 coming into the second half, and we were just going to continue to battle throughout the game. A lot of emotions came out in the second half, with refs, with players, with teams. But I thought our team did a great job of fighting through that frustration, which is what coach preaches to us every day."
Barcello knocked down back-to-back buckets — including an ankle-breaking crossover into a smooth jumper — to push the lead to 23-17 midway through the first half, but San Diego responded with a 6-0 run to take a 25-23 edge into the final minutes of the half.
Enter Knight (again), who stole the ball off Yavuz Gultekin and raced the other direction for two to keep the Cougars in the game.
Knight had 14 points, five rebounds and two of BYU's three 3-pointers in the first half for a team that shot just 33% from the field but were tied with the Toreros at the break. BYU also outrebounded San Diego 25-17 and limited the Toreros to just three offensive rebounds and two second-chance points in the first half.
"I thought Seneca provided a great amount of energy in the first half. He was just finding his spots," Barcello said. "We've got a lot of guys who have been underappreciated in other places, and they've got a chip on their shoulder. When they come here, they're willing to do whatever it takes to win and to buy into a top-25 team.
"It's just fun to play with people that you really like."
.@sen_13_ clutching up to tie the score at half, 31-31. 😤#BYUhoops | #GoCougspic.twitter.com/AwlOmdLvTC
— BYUtv Sports (@byutvsports) January 21, 2022
George sparked his own personal 7-0 run with his first 3-pointer with 14:13 remaining, and the Cougars started to pull away. Barcello then helped put the game away for good by directing a 13-4 spurt with back-to-back jumpers and a seam pass to Spencer Johnson for a score with 8:03 left.
The Cougars shot just 33% from the field in the first half, but 69% after the break and didn't trail for the final 16 minutes.
Very nice, indeed.
"The guys had so much energy and intensity, and that's a good thing," Pope said of his team that outrebounded USD 38-28. "We walked into halftime with eight offensive rebounds, and that was a good thing because we knew that our intensity was in the right place.
"Most coaching staffs in the country are just begging their guys to come and compete every night — and these guys come every night. That is a separator for this team."
