PROVO – BYU beat Idaho State 85-71 with help from a career-high 14 points off the bench by Payton Dastrup Thursday night at the Marriott Center.
“I am proud of our guys and what they have gone through with an emotional game last week and finals this week,” BYU head coach Dave Rose said. “We got a good win tonight, and I think that offensively our game plan was good. We were patient and went side-to-side. We took advantage of our opportunities.”
In addition to Dastrup’s career-high point total, he went 5 for 5 from the field and added four rebounds. Yoeli Childs put up a game-high 20 points, a game-high eight boards and a career-high four steals. Additionally, Elijah Bryant and TJ Haws each collected 14 points in the win.
Childs got the first bucket of the game before Idaho State (4-6) scored the next four points to take a 4-2 advantage.
The Bengals’ Novak Topalovic then began to work the paint, getting into double-digit points with just over six minutes of playing time – evening the score at 12-all. Childs quickly countered a minute later with his own fifth-made basket of the night.
The closely-contested half continued as a Dastrup 3-pointer and layup pushed BYU (10-2) ahead 23-19.
With 6:06 left to go before halftime, Dastrup found Bryant for a perimeter shot, extending the advantage to seven at 28-21.
Childs then scored five of the next seven Cougar points to make it 35-23, and a pair of free throws from Childs ended the half to give BYU a 41-30 lead at the break.
Zac Seljaas scored the first five points coming out of halftime after a 3-pointer and two shots from the charity stripe to make it 46-30.
Haws and Bryant then made back-to-back treys to push the advantage up to 20 at 54-34. Idaho State followed that up with three 3-pointers to get back within 13, down 56-43.
A transition dunk from Haws and another Dastrup 3-point shot re-extended the advantage to 18 at 61-43 with 12:30 left in the game.
A three-point play from Haws made it 73-58 with under six minutes remaining, and BYU maintained its advantage from there, winning the game 85-71.
The Cougars return to the Marriott Center next, facing Texas Southern Saturday, Dec. 23, at 7 p.m. MST, for their final nonconference game of the season. The game will be televised nationally on BYUtv. It will also be broadcast live on BYU Radio – Sirius XM 143, the BYU Sports Network and KSL 1160 AM/102.7 FM.
Stats: ISU-BYU-Box
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