BYU men’s basketball head coach Kevin Young and his crew are solely focused on UC Riverside, which comes to the Marriott Center on Saturday.

Tuesday’s incredible 67-64 BYU comeback victory against Clemson at Madison Square Garden, however, requires a bit more breakdown before moving on.

It was a strange game, where the Tigers went on a 21-0 run to end the first half and led by 21, 43-22, at halftime. BYU was down 22 points early in the second half but rallied to take the lead, 54-52, with 4:11 to play.

It was the first game in Cougar history where BYU was held scoreless for more than six minutes AND held its opponent scoreless for more than six minutes in the same game.

Courtesy BYU Photo

A brilliant play design — and execution of that play — produced a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by sophomore guard Robert Wright III.

But then there was the play before the play, where the Cougars advanced the ball to midcourt and called time out, ala NBA-style.

“It was a pretty tight position there,” Young said.. “The initial full court play we had drawn up, they had defended it well. At the last minute, I was kind of like, ‘Hey, Rob, if you get it, get it across half-court, and we’ll call a timeout.’ That play that we ran at the end there is one we worked on in practice several times. Rob made a big-time play. Mihailo (Boskovic), he didn’t play in the second half. He comes in, I trust him as a passer, he made a great pass. Then Rob made it happen.”

Freshman AJ Dybantsa, who scored 22 of his 28 points in the second half, which outscored the entire Clemson team by one point, said “You got to have trust in your teammates. It don’t matter what the play is, don’t matter if I had 50 that game. Whoever is open gets the ball. That’s the kind of trust we have in our team. They decided to double me. He (Wright) shoots 45 percent from 3. I’ll take that.”

Young also addressed his team’s ability to turn it on in the second half.

Courtesy BYU Photo

“Unfortunately, we’ve been in this situation too many times this year,” he said. “Our second half has been ridiculously efficient and effective. Although I wish that wasn’t the case, I think having reference points as you go throughout the season are really important. I talked about we’ve been in that situation before, but really I just challenged them, honestly. I thought to a man they were playing harder than we were.

“Then we did make a slight adjustment offensively. I give Clemson tons of credit. They had a good game plan to put us in mud in the first half. We just couldn’t find a home offensively. We went to some really, really simple stuff in the second half. We did some early step-up screens for Rob, got the matchups we wanted. Offensively, that’s what opened the game up.”

Saturday will be BYU’s first game in the Marriott Center since Nov. 11, an 85-68 victory vs. Delaware. Since then the Cougars have played in Boston’s TD Garden, the Delta Center (twice), State Farm Fieldhouse in Florida and New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Scouting Report

Much has changed for UC Riverside since BYU held off the Highlanders 86-80 at the Marriott Center last November.

UC Riverside has a new coach (Cal State-San Bernadino’s Gus Argenal) to replace Mike Magpayo, who left for Fordham. As is often the case for mid-major programs in the NIL era, top scorer Barrington Hargress (20.2 ppg) fled for a bigger payday at Colorado. Two players (Rikus Schulte and Abass Bodija) joined Magpayo at Fordham.

Nate Pickens, who scored 18 points against the Cougars, transferred to Provo this spring but had season-ending surgery two weeks ago.

In fact, only one of the 11 athletes who played against BYU last season (6-4 sophomore guard Parker Strauss) is even on the roster as the Highlanders come to the Marriott Center on Saturday.

UC Riverside was picked to finish ninth (out of 11 teams) in the Big West preseason poll. The Highlanders are 5-5 after splitting their first two Big West games last week, losing at UC-Irvine 73-60 but beating Cal Poly 88-84.

Graduate guard Andrew Henderson, who came with Argenal from San Bernadino, leads UC Riverside with 17.3 points per game and had 28 in the victory against Cal Poly.

Former Utah Valley big man Osiris Grady is averaging 13.2 points and 6.6 rebounds per game for the Highlanders.

Men’s College Basketball

No. 10 BYU (8-1) vs. UC Riverside (5-5)

Saturday, 7 p.m. MT

Marriott Center, Provo

TV/Streaming: ESPN+

Radio: KSL 102.7/1160 AM, BYU Radio-Sirus XM 143,

Live stats: byucougars.com

The Word: BYU leads the overall series with UC Riverside 2-0, winning 86-80 in Provo last season. … Cougar guard Nate Pickens, who had season-ending surgery two weeks ago, transferred to BYU from UC Riverside after averaging 9.8 points and 3.5 rebounds per game in 2024-25. … The Cougars have won 22 straight non-conference games in the Marriott Center, its last loss a 75-60 defeat at the hands of Utah Valley in 2022.