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BYU's Trey Stewart dribbles out the final seconds of a 91-89 victory against Wisconsin in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Ball Arena in Denver, Colo., on Saturday, March 22, 2025.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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BYU's Trey Stewart celebrates a 91-89 victory against Wisconsin in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Ball Arena in Denver, Colo., on Saturday, March 22, 2025.

Courtesy BYU Photo

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DENVER — BYU’s Trey Stewart up ended with the ball in the final seconds and was supposed to dribble out the clock in Saturday’s 91-89 victory against Wisconsin at Ball Arena, but he had something else in mind.

“I can’t remember who it was, but they were playing Duke,” Stewart said. “They got a steal on Duke at the end of the game. The same thing happened in West Virginia, where I had the ball and I didn’t dunk it. Then my teammates came up to me and were like, ‘Why didn’t you?’ So then this game, I was like, ‘Man, I’ve got to drill it in there.'”

Stewart tossed the ball off the backboard and threw it down one-handed. The dunk came after the buzzer but that didn’t matter to Stewart, whose journey from three years basically cheering from the bench to becoming a significant contributor on a Sweet 16 team is well documented.

“I mean, this is what you dream of as a kid,” Stewart said. “I’m grateful to be here. We still got a lot of work to do. I know we’ve got a lot of life in us, so I’m really excited for this game playing on the biggest stage of college basketball.”

Through is first three seasons in Provo, Stewart played more than 10 minutes just once in 64 games, usually relegated to mop-up duty in blowouts. The transfer portal was there offering, perhaps, greener pastures.

But Stewart stayed.

This season started slowly for Stewart as well but by the middle of February BYU coach Kevin Young said he couldn’t ignore the effort and results Stewart was showing at practices. His playing time was at first limited to a few minutes at the end of the first half for defense. In the final 10 games of the season, Stewart has played double-digit minutes eight times, including 13 minutes and 41 seconds in the victory against Wisconsin.

“There’s a lot of emotion, but my main thing is just all praises to God,” Stewart said. “I’m just so grateful for my relationship I’ve had with Him. There’s been a lot of dark times where I felt like this is never going to turn around, but I kept working. He always stuck by my side. My teammates always stuck by my side. My family always stuck by my side. So just seeing all this is just kind of like one of the most satisfying things that I can always look back on.”

The former American Fork star scored seven points against the Badgers, including a big 3-pointer in the second half. Stewart said he was hesitant to shoot in the first half but his coaches encouraged him.

“They were like, ‘Hey, you gotta shoot that, baby,” Stewart said. “‘You’ve worked too hard.'”

Defending Wisconsin’s John Tonje (37 points) and John Blackwell (21) was tough for both Stewart and Mag but the payoff showed up in the most critical of moments.

“Defense is our ceiling, that’s what KY (Young) has always been saying,” Stewart said. “But it was beautiful to finally see that on this stage like that. We do this drill where you stay down on the pump fakes and when Tonje was driving on Mo, it was pump fake, pump fake and Mo stayed down.”

How did Stewart rate Mag’s final defensive effort?

“100 out of 10,” Stewart said. “Other people dream of hitting buzzer beaters in March Madness. I dream of getting stops in March Madness.”

The final play: Tonje was brilliant all game long driving to the basket, drawing fouls and making big shots, only to have his final attempt come up short.

“I just tried to get downhill,” he said. “I just got kind of stopped around the block area. At that point I didn’t know what options I had, I just tried to go up with it. ”

From the other side: Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said he liked the heart and grit his team showed in making the late comeback and was complimentary of BYU.

“I thought BYU did some good things,” Gard said. “It took us a while to get our feet defensively. It was just probably the offensive display that everyone expected, having two really, really good offensive teams. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get traction a little bit earlier defensively, and then obviously we don’t have a ball go in there at the end.

“He (Young) has good players. That makes good coaches. Saunders is really good. To come out and watch him warm up, the ball comes off his hands really well. Demin as a freshman at that size, obviously you can tell he’s been trained in the European ball screen stuff from Russia. I thought Mag has improved. We played against him at Rutgers for four years. He was just a defensive stopper there. Keita, I thought, has gotten better since he’s come from Utah. And the other guys after doing a good job filling their roles.”

Cougar faithful: BYU fans come in all flavors.

Sam from Pleasant Grove watched the Cougars’ first-round victory against VCU on TV and decided that he, his brother and Sam’s pre-teen son were going to make the trek to Denver for Round 2 on Saturday, their first NCAA Tournament.

After waiting for ticket prices to drop late Friday (which they did, according to Sam, by $50 to $75), they made the purchase and prepared to make the drive.

They left at 4 a.m. from Utah County.

“The roads were bad,” Sam admitted. “Vale Pass was really snowy and so was Spanish Fork Canyon. It was a little bit of tough slog there for a bit.”

The trio were in their seats (baseline view, about 15 rows up) early to catch the Texas A&M-Michigan game at Ball Arena.

“Egor had a big game, hitting those threes, which we haven’t seen much of this season,” Sam said by way of analysis of Game 1. “And I thought we did a really good job of being connected on defense as well, which got VCU out of the game they wanted to play. I love what Kevin (Young) does with his in-game adjustments. They went down to Fous, and then let’s do the pick and roll with Egor, right?”

Sam said he was a poor college student when Jimmer Fredette and BYU took Denver by storm in 2011 so he didn’t want to miss this opportunity.

Sam’s son, by the way, is named “Cougar.”

Red vs. Blue: As expected, both BYU and Wisconsin fans showed up in droves for the game, with an announced attendance of 19,386.

“Just the energy in the building, you can’t describe it,” Young said. “It felt like, honestly, a home game in certain moments for Cougar Nation, just everywhere, just so much blue out there. Obviously Denver has been good to us.”

Nothing left: Reports from fans indicated BYU NCAA Tournament t-shirts sold out at Ball Arena before the start of the Texas A&M-Michigan game on Saturday.

Who’s the best? Prior to BYU’s victory against Wisconsin, the Big Ten was 8-o in NCAA Tournament play. After Saturday’s games, the Big Ten was 10-1 and the Big 12 was 8-1, the only loss going to Kansas in the opening round.

The SEC, which placed 14 teams in the tournament, was 10-6.