Fortunately the Cougars found their groove late and put together a convincing 67-50 win over the visiting Bengals during what marked the season opener at the Marriott Center.

Leading the way for the Cougars was senior standout Delaney Gibb and her team-high 17 points with strong contributions coming off the bench, and particularly from Sydney Benally, who added eight points along with a couple of assists and a couple of steals. Perhaps Benally’s biggest contribution came midway through the third quarter when hitting consecutive 3-pointers to erase a 31-30 deficit and turn it into a 36-31 lead.

“Sydney’s been doing a really good job this fall. She’s been shooting it really well, and she really kind of broke the lid off of basket … and got everybody going from outside in the second half,” said BYU coach Lee Cummard.

As for Cummard, his mention of a ‘lid’ set on the basket, it may have served as a bit of an understatement.

After Gibb hit a 3-point basket just 54 seconds into the game, the Cougars proceeded to miss 17 straight from behind the arc to finish out the first half with a tight 25-24 lead. Two more were missed from range to lead off the third quarter before Gibb added her second 3-pointer to tie the game at 30-30 leading up to Benally’s consecutive makes.

“I think it was more so we were getting stops on defense, and our defensive rebounds were leading to transition, pushing the ball, and that’s how we want to play,” Benally credited for her key 3-pointers. “And we were just believing in each other, and we finally got the lid off the basket, so we just felt more confident.”

Indeed the Cougars rolled from that point on, outscoring Idaho State 31-18 to close out while managing to hit on 40 percent of their 3-pointers during the second half of play. Overall Cummard’s team hit on just 9-38 of its 3-point attempts, although he was encouraged by his team adjustments and the overall effort throughout the game’s 40 minutes.

“It was a hard-fought game. Idaho State does a great job and is well-coached. They had a game plan, came in here, and wanted to play a style that we would rather not play,” Cummard said. “We want to play with a little more pace than we were able to play in the first half. But they are very well-coached and they executed at a high level. I thought we looked a lot more like ourselves in the second half defensively and offensively, and ultimately that that kind of was the difference in the game.”

Cummard also drew encouragement with his bench play, with several second-string contributors filling in for the team’s five starters who went a combined 14-51 from the field. Perhaps the only starter who didn’t struggle making baskets was starting center Bolanie Yussuf, who went 3-3 from the field which paired nicely with Miriam Traore’s 4-6 effort off the bench.

“To get 15 (points) and 14 (rebounds) from those two, you know, in 32 minutes is is pretty good. We’ll take that any day,” Cummard said of Yussuf and Traore’s combined play.

“Yeah, she’s bringing it every day in practice,” Benally added of Traore’s play, specifically. “She’s competing against Bola (Yussuf), who’s a big person in the paint. But yeah, it’s good that they compete against each other, so she was able to show it today.”

Also showing well for the Cougars throughout was a good defensive effort that helped hold the Bengals to just 50 points scored while forcing 20 turnovers and 32 percent shooting from the field.

“We want to pressure, and we want to dictate a little bit more. It’s hard because they wanted to kind of shrink the game and shoot with the last eight, ten seconds on the clock to pressure for a whole possession,” Cummard said. “It’s tiring, and it’s asking a lot, but it caused 20 turnovers. Some of those led to easy baskets for us, and I thought we did a great job rebounding.”

All in all the win was a good hump for the Cougars to get over as they prepare for the rest of the season which will include an always challenging Big 12 Conference slate.

“Early in the season, you just want to look as much like you practice as you possibly can. How you prepare — you want that to translate on the court,” Cummard concluded. “We had a couple couple things that happened in the game that were just, ‘Hey, you know, we kind of lgot this right now,’ you know?”

BYU will finish out a busy first week of the season hosting Portland on Thursday night and Montana on Saturday afternoon.