BYU, West Virginia strive to survive another day in Big 12 tournament
AJ Dybantsa put on a show during the opening day of the Big 12 tournament on Tuesday, and he will look to continue playing a starring role as No. 10 seed BYU takes on No. 7 seed West Virginia in the second round on Wednesday night in Kansas City, Mo.
Dybantsa became the first freshman in league history to score 40 points in a tournament game, doing so in the Cougars' 105-91 victory over 15th-seeded Kansas State.
The previous record belonged to former Texas great Kevin Durant, who scored 37 points in a game against Kansas in the 2007 Big 12 tournament.
"What he was doing was super impressive because he was scoring every way possible. He was scoring in the post, he was scoring in transition, scoring in pick and roll, scoring in isolations," BYU coach Kevin Young said. "I thought it was just a full display of his skill set. I think he's the most skilled offensive player in college basketball, and it was on full display tonight."
Dybantsa is the country's leading scorer, averaging 25.2 points per game. Kennard Davis Jr. also was impressive in the opener, knocking down four 3-pointers and scoring 15 points in the second half for BYU (22-10).
It won't be easy to duplicate that type of offensive performance against West Virginia (18-13). The Mountaineers have the league's second-best defense, limiting opponents to an average of 64.6 points per game. Their offense, though, ranks at the bottom of the Big 12, averaging just 69.9 points per game.
But West Virginia hopes to make a late push to get into the March Madness conversation. This is a team that defeated then-No. 19-ranked BYU 79-71 on Feb. 28 and closed the regular season with a 77-62 victory over UCF on Friday. Honor Huff led the team in scoring in both wins, finishing with 19 points against BYU and 24 vs. UCF to increase his scoring average to a team-high 15.8 per game this season.
The attention now is on extending the season as long as possible.
"You're fighting to keep playing games, but if you really care about each other, you're fighting for like one more film session, one more plane ride, one more bus trip," West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge said. "And the teams that I've been around that have had the level of success that we've had, they enjoy being around each other this time of year."