If anyone watched both the BYU men’s basketball and women’s basketball games on Thursday couldn’t have helped but noticed frustrating similarities to the way both contests started.

In the men’s game against No. 11-seed Duquesne in the NCAA tournament in Omaha, Neb., the No. 6-seed Cougars surrendered the first nine points of the game.

The BYU women were the No. 5-seed in the Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament and played at No. 4-seed Santa Clara — and fell behind 10-1.

While the paths from that point diverged, the end results were the same. Both the Cougar squads saw their seasons come to a close.

Despite being shorthanded, the BYU women did a better job at responding and built a 10-point second-half lead. It wasn’t enough, however, as the Broncos rallied to get the dramatic 60-59 win.

The Cougars were playing without freshman Kailey Woolston, who hurt her knee in the loss to Kansas in the Big 12 tournament a couple of weeks ago.

That meant that BYU needed other players to step up, which they did for much of the game.

Cougar freshman guard Amari Whiting (14 points) and senior guard Kaylee Smiler (13 points) picked up the scoring, while BYU also got key minutes from freshman Marina Mata off the bench when BYU dealt with foul trouble.

The visitors used 3-pointers from Whiting and Smiler to narrow the gap after the Santa Clara blitz to start the game, but the Broncos still led 16-9 early in the second quarter.

That was when BYU got things going on both ends of the floor, holding Santa Clara to just nine points over the next quarter-and-a-half.

The Cougar offense also made a number of plays with Whiting driving hard to the basket and Smiler and junior guard Lauren Davenport hitting shots. That allowed BYU to flip the script and go up 35-25 early in the third.

But the home team answered with a 12-0 push of their own and the contest seesawed back for much of the rest of the second half.

The Broncos got a trio of 3-pointers to go up 50-47 midway through the fourth, but Smiler answered with a trey of her own and a layup from senior Lauren Gustin put the Cougars back in front.

The teams exchanged shots and Santa Clara was up one when Smiler got a big block on a layup attempt. She got caught up in the emotion of the moment, however, and was tagged with a technical foul.

The Broncos hit both free throws to go up 58-55, but Whiting stole a pass. Gustin got stopped inside but found junior Rose Bubakar in the corner for her first 3-pointer of the game to tie the score.

The two teams then traded turnovers with Santa Clara having the ball with a chance to hold for the last shot.

Bronco star sophomore Tess Heal got the shot she wanted, breaking past the BYU defense and laying it in with 4.5 seconds to play.

The Cougars got two chances to force overtime but the first was blocked and the second resulted in a foul. BYU could only get one of the two free throws to drop and Santa Clara held on for the win.

Smiler and Gustin finished off their final game as Cougars having played an enormous role in the transition between coaching staffs and helping a young team improve.

The Broncos advance to the second round of the WBIT as they will play at No. 1-seed Washington State on Saturday.

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