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BYU's Fousseyni Traore, right, blocks a UCF shot attempt during a second round Big 12 Tournament game at T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday, March 13, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU's Fousseyni Traore goes up for a shot during a second round Big 12 Tournament game at T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday, March 13, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU's Fousseyni Traore drives to the basket during a second round Big 12 Tournament game at T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday, March 13, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU' head coach Mark Pope (left) celebrates with Fousseyni Traore after the second round Big 12 Tournament game against UCF at T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday, March 13, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU's Dallin Hall goes up for a layup during a second round Big 12 Tournament game at T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday, March 13, 2024.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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Midway through the second half of Wednesday’s Big 12 tournament opener for the No. 5-seeded BYU men’s basketball team against No. 12-seed UCF, I got wondering if Cougar junior forward Fousseyni Traore watches Scott Van Pelt and Stanford Steve’s Bad Beats on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”

The segment highlights sporting events where sports bettors potentially could lose when it looked like they were going to win, due to unusual plays or unexpected scoring.

If Traore saw the latest edition, shown on Tuesday, he would’ve seen that he made the cut in last Saturday’s 85-71 win over Oklahoma State at the Marriott Center.

The betting line on BYU’s game against the Cowboys was 13.5, meaning that anyone who bet on the Cougars were hoping BYU would win by 14 points or more.

With under 30 seconds to play, BYU led by 16 and appeared to be in great shape to cover the spread.

Oklahoma State’s Justin McBride drove into the lane and took off, attempting to dunk the ball. Traore timed his leap to contest the shot and even Van Pelt said that on the replay it looked like he got all ball.

But, as often happens when a team is down big, a foul was called on the Cougar big man, who couldn’t believe it.

Traore expressed his displeasure and got an additional technical foul called, meaning the Cowboys would get four free throws and a chance to get the deficit down under the 13.5-point line.

Oklahoma State only managed to make two of the shots, then missed another 3-pointer and BYU covered the spread with the 14-point win.

Now I doubt Traore pays much attention to things like Bad Beats except to have a laugh or two if someone showed it to him. It certainly wouldn’t have any impact on how he played the game.

And the Cougars should be very, very glad it didn’t.

Let’s go back to Wednesday morning, where the Cougars were facing the Knights — a team that led the Big 12 (the best conference in college basketball, if you hadn’t heard) with 5.2 blocks per game (tied for No. 14 in the nation).

Put yourself in Traore’s shoes as the second-half clock went under the 13-minute mark.

His BYU squad had led the whole game but seen their 18-point first half lead eaten away, mainly by the outstanding shooting of guard Darius Johnson. The UCF star — who finished with 32 points — just drilled back-to-back 3-pointers to make the score 59-56.

Traore had just barely had a chance to stem the Knight onslaught with a pair of free throws, but could only get 1-of-2 to drop.

Now the Cougar junior was patrolling the paint as UCF went back on offense with a chance to put a lot more pressure on the higher-seeded Cougars.

Knight guard Jaylin Sellers got the ball on the wing, went around a screen and attacked, soaring in for a very similar dunk attempt to the one McBride had for Oklahoma State on Saturday.

If he rammed it home, the UCF bench would’ve exploded and the underdogs very well could’ve ridden the momentum to seize control of the contest.

In that moment, I don’t think Traore was thinking about previous foul calls or technicals.

He refused to back down and went up high and got a piece of the ball, knocking it out of Sellers’ hand before he could complete the hammer dunk.

BYU forced a tie-up on the ensuing loose ball, scored a couple of free throws on its next possession and put together a 12-0 run to regain its temporarily lost mojo.

That was the second of three blocks Traore had against the Knights, which ended up matching UCF’s block total for the game (BYU had four total blocks). It gave him 84 career blocks, which is tied for the 14th most in program history.

It was also the ninth time he has had three or more blocks in his career which is tied for the 10th most in program history.

Traore also recorded his first double-double of the season and 19th of his career after finishing with 14 points and 10 rebounds. That is the 20th most double-doubles in program history.

All the statistics are fun and give some insight into Traore’s contributions, but I love looking for those little moments in games when momentum changes.

Traore’s block was certainly one of them, although it could be argued that senior Spencer Johnson had just as big of a play on the next possession when he drew a charge on Darius Johnson.

That was the Knight star’s third foul and sent him briefly to the bench, which also likely was a factor in BYU’s big run.

Was Traore’s deflection or Spencer Johnson’s excellent footwork the bigger play?

I could argue in favor of either one but the combination of the two happening just 43 seconds apart certainly were huge for the Cougars in getting the win.

And BYU is going to need a lot more of those as the pressure gets exponentially higher with each postseason game.

The Cougars have a lot of guys who could be the ones to make a key play, but they need someone to get the job done to keep progressing.

Who knows? Maybe Bad Beats will zero in on BYU again before the season is done.

As long as the Cougars are on the winning end on the scoreboard, I doubt they’ll mind.

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