Although it took a phantom foul call in the final seconds of the game to seal the deal, the BYU Cougars departed the McKale Center with a win over the 19th-ranked Arizona Wildcats on Saturday night, greatly improving the Cougars’ chances of making the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive year.
There are plenty of potential headlines here for BYU, including the the questionable whistle on Arizona’s Trey Townsend that sent Richie Saunders to the free throw line for the two game-winning free throws, or the fact that the Cougars have won four games in a row. But the one worth focusing on, at least for a moment, is that with a 96-95 win, BYU made a statement at the expense of the Arizona Wildcats that hasn’t been made since Jimmer Fredette was still the Big Man on Campus in Provo, Utah.
“BYU’s 96 points in tonight’s win are the most by any visiting team in a game at McKale Center since December 28, 2009, when BYU beat Arizona 99-69, led by 49 from Jimmer Fredette,” writes former ESPN Stats & Information researcher Jared Berson on X. “That was BYU’s last visit to McKale — Arizona played 258 home games in the interim.”
That game in late December 2009 represents the second-highest scoring output of Fredette’s storied BYU career, topped only by a 52 point outburst against New Mexico in the 2011 Mountain West Tournament Semifinal. It was one of six 40 point games that Fredette, who led the nation in scoring during his senior season, had during his four years at BYU.
The Cougars don’t have a singular force on their roster this year like Fredette, and their NCAA Tournament ticket, although looking better now than two weeks ago, is by no means punched, but if BYU makes it to the Big Dance, this could be a sign of good things to come. The last time BYU made it out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament was in Fredette’s senior season, when the Cougars — a 3-seed — were ousted in the Sweet Sixteen by the 2nd-seeded Florida Gators.
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