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PROVO — All that was left of BYU men's basketball's first regular season in the Big 12 by Saturday night was a chance to honor three seniors and clinch a No. 5 seed in next week's conference tournament in Kansas City.
The Cougars did it the only way they know how: with a flurry of threes, a big night from Fousseyni Traore, and a massive second-half run.
Traore scored 13 of his 19 points in the second half; Spencer Johnson added 14 points, 10 rebounds and five assists; and No. 20 BYU canned 12 triples en route to a 85-71 win over Oklahoma State in front of a sold-out crowd of 17,978 fans at the Marriott Center.
Jaxson Robinson had 17 points and five rebounds for the Cougars (22-9, 10-8 Big 12), and Aly Khalifa totaled 9 points, four rebounds and three assists.
Javon Small scored a career-high 32 points to lead the Cowboys (12-19, 4-14 Big 12), who handed BYU its only Quad 3 loss of the year that immediately moved up to Quad 2 as Oklahoma State moved up to No. 121 in the NET.
"How about that crowd tonight, too? Our crowd always shows out, but I thought tonight was special," Johnson said. "Small got going, hitting shots from everywhere. But I felt like we responded well. We didn't get on our heels, we stayed on our toes, they attacked our press and we kept shooting."
BYU started 2-of-10 from the field before Robinson checked in off the bench, and the senior with a year of eligibility remaining (who celebrated senior night prior to tipoff) immediately hit a pair of layups to lead the team in scoring.
Robinson scored on four of his first five shots from the field, and Khalifa drained his second 3-pointer to lift the Cougars to a 21-14 lead with 6:54 left in the half.
The Cougars shot just 39% form the field in the first half, but made four 3-pointers to Oklahoma State's two and held the Cowboys to just 40% shooting en route to a 32-29 halftime edge.
Traore had 6 points and three rebounds before the half for BYU. But adjustments started in the locker room, with a particular focus on owning the glass — BYU outrebounded the Cowboys 35-33 including a 27-7 advantage on the Cougars' defensive glass — and doing what they do best: shoot threes.
"This team does such a good job of talking to each other, talking through what we're seeing out there, what we're feeling, and receiving it as well," said Johnson, who introduced his newborn son Joey to the Marriott Center for the first time during a pregame ceremony honoring him, Robinson and the Cougars' other senior Tredyn Christensen. "We knew we just had to make sure to control the boards and get back."
The Cougars shot 8-of-12 from the perimeter after the break, and it started early.
"Going into the second half, we knew that some of the things we normally do we weren't doing in the first half," said Robinson, who shot 7-of-12 from the field. "So we just made a couple of adjustments at the half, and I think it paid off. We shot 66% from three in the second half, so I guess it did."
Khalifa and Johnson drained back-to-back 3-pointers as BYU capped a 13-0 run to open the second half with a 45-29 advantage. The Pokes missed their first five attempts from the field, and the Cougars stretched their run as high as 18-4 and 21-6 to take a 52-35 lead on Traore's hook shot with 13:46 remaining.
BYU connected on six of its first eight 3-pointers of the second half, shot an effective field-goal percentage as high as 98%, and turned a 3-point halftime edge into a 25-point margin midway though the second half.
"That kind of broke the ice," Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton said. "And then they went to Traore, and it really kept us off balance. You've got to figure out if you're going to single cover him, or if you are going to leave someone open that is a great 3-point shooter. I thought the start of the half was really critical to us, putting us in a tough spot."
The Cowboys didn't cut inside double digits the result of the way against a BYU team that shot 18-of-26 from the field in the second half including 8-of-12 from distance and 9-of-12 from the free-throw line.
The Cougars will open the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City next Wednesday against the winner of 12th-seeded UCF and 13th-seeded Oklahoma State. Tipoff is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. MST on ESPN or ESPN2.
