Jason Franchuk - DAILY HERALD | Posted: Saturday, January 3, 2009 11:00 pm
About 12 minutes left, in a night of highly unusual circumstances, BYU coach Dave Rose felt the need to take the microphone and tell the highly emotional student section to cool it.
The second-largest crowd to ever see a game at the Marriott Center was all over the referees Saturday for a series of foul calls which went Wake Forest's way.
Rose's plea to keep people from throwing things -- in large part made because his team was in no position to afford technical fouls -- was just one of a series of moments which aren't really expected in Provo these days.
The prime one to mention, of course, would be the final scoreboard: The No. 6-ranked Demon Deacons left with a 94-87 win which kept them undefeated (13-0) and snapped the nation's longest active home-court winning streak. Jeff Teague, who lit up BYU last year in North Carolina, did it again with 30 points to give a new team the honor.
Step on up, Notre Dame. That 43-game run you're on is now tops, after BYU's 53 in a row bit the dust in front of 23,096 fans. It was just 11 entrants shy of breaking the arena record (March 7, 1981, against Utah).
And sadly for the 11-2 Cougars, who could feel the tangible buzz from the time they arrived at the arena (as did Wake Forest's coach), the opportunity and the pomp around it ended flat.
"Maybe later in life (appreciation will come), not tonight," said senior forward Lee Cummard, who once again was saddled with foul trouble in a big game.
He still wound up with 17 points, despite being limited severely in the first half because of two whistles against him in the opening five minutes.
Jimmer Fredette had a team-high 23 points and Jonathan Tavernari added 17, though he'll most likely be thinking about two points which weren't his but probably should have been.
Jackson Emery airballed a 3-pointer and Tavernari's follow-up lay-in came tantalizingly close to making it a two-point deficit again with about 25 seconds left.
If the whole BYU crowd exhaled at the same time, the rim-kisser probably would've cut Wake's margin. Instead, another missed shot, another strange and rotten home break.
And two more free throws started getting the large crowd thinking about their car keys.
Everyone looked drained at game's end, from fans to players and coaches. The pace was fast and physical. The runs were wild, starting with the Cougars falling behind 14-5 before going on a 15-0 run.
BYU fought off foul trouble all night, even forcing Rose to play more zone defense than he has in his three-plus years.
There were 49 fouls called, seven more against the Cougars (28).
Rose did a nice job getting the rowdy, into-it students to see some perspective, but he couldn't help himself at taking a dig at the refs afterward:
"I think they made a good point," Rose said of all the hostility.
The two BYU centers, Chris Miles (5:21 remaining) and Gavin MacGregor (2:11) were disqualified with five fouls. That not only opened up the paint for Wake Forest's offense (and some critical second chances), but also disrupted BYU's because so many plays run through it.
The anger hit the zenith eight minutes into the second half, after a couple of close foul calls went against BYU. An empty water bottle and a couple of T-shirts rained onto the court. It was 9-4 against BYU in fouls and the Cougars had just seen their biggest lead (64-56, 14:37 left) get whittled close to one of the contest's 10 ties.
Tavernari had just drawn a questionable whistle after a Wake fast break led to a layup possibility.
Rose told the crowd, in essence, to let the players play and refs do their jobs while the fans watched.
He got the crowd to mellow out and would afterward have to boost his team's spirits.
"We just didn't seem to be able to get a rhythm offensively the last four or five minutes of the game," Rose said. "A lot of that had to do with their defensive length; they blocked some shots. We had some good looks, but we just couldn't get the ball to go in."
Unlike the last meeting in North Carolina, when the Cougars were done early, at least this was down to the wire.
Except the Cougars couldn't finish. Cummard made 1-of-2 free throws to tie the score at 85 with 2:03 left.
Wake's James Johnson (22 points) followed with a layup off Teague's missed 3-point shot.
"A big play," Rose noted.
Even bigger because scoring was not BYU's strong point. It missed the last nine 3-point attempts in the final 7:07.
Tavernari made the last one, cutting Wake's margin to 77-75, then he missed his last five. Cummard clanked three, as well.
"In here, normally those shots go down," Cummard said with a blank stare in post-game interviews. "Even on the road, we probably don't have stretches like that. We got good looks, but no moral victories. They came in here and beat us. We lost; that's all there is to it. Look back on it later in life or whatever, but we lost tonight."
While players and coaches could be seen looking into the crowd at times during warm-ups, enjoying the mass of bodies ready to see a big night, most had eyes glued to the floor afterward. There was too much hurt to see fans go away, after a prime opportunity just had as well.
"We had a really good team on the ropes, here in our building, but we couldn't finish it off," Rose said. "But they battled and they were very competitive. You use those things as examples. We need to get a little more depth. Play a few more guys in big situations. And our execution needs to get better. We need to get ourselves those same shots again and be able to execute."
• Jason Franchuk can be reached at jfranchuk@heraldextra.com