Next up for BYU — a WCC road showdown against a Saint Mary’s team coming off 4OT loss

Brigham Young Cougars forward Yoeli Childs (23) passes the ball against the Loyola Marymount Lions at the Marriott Center in Provo on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019. | Silas Walker, Deseret News

Late Saturday night, Saint Mary’s lost a quadruple-overtime thriller to Pacific, 107-99. So the Cougars should expect a fired-up Gael team Thursday night that can’t afford another conference defeat this early in the season — especially at home. 

PROVO — Not long after BYU dispatched Loyola Marymount 63-38 in its West Coast Conference opener Saturday night at the Marriott Center, Cougar coach Mark Pope and his players started fielding questions about their next challenge.

BYU (12-4, 1-0), which has won six consecutive games, visits Saint Mary’s (14-3, 1-1) Thursday (9 p.m., MST, ESPN2 or ESPNU).

The Cougars have lost five consecutive games at McKeon Pavilion in Moraga, California. BYU hasn’t won there since 2014, when Pope was a Cougar assistant.

“It’s a tough gym to play in,” he said. “I have been on teams that have won there — not a lot — but we have and that’s the only game I’m going to think about.”

Forward Yoeli Childs, who scored a game-high 19 points and pulled down 12 rebounds said, “I’m super excited. We haven’t got a win (at Saint Mary’s) yet in my career here so we’re due for one. It’s about time.”

As Pope and Childs were making those comments, Saint Mary’s was playing at Pacific. That epic game ended late Saturday night with the Gaels losing a quadruple-overtime thriller to the Tigers, 107-99, snapping their five-game winning streak.

Pacific’s Jahlil Tripp poured in a career-high 39 points while Saint Mary’s guard Jordan Ford scored a career-high 36 points in the four OT contest.

So the Cougars should expect a fired-up Gael team Thursday that can’t afford another conference defeat this early in the season — especially at home.

But that wasn’t the only surprising result of the night in the WCC.

Gonzaga, the nation’s No. 1 team, had to rally in the second half to beat Pepperdine at home Saturday night, 75-70. The Zags had 17 turnovers against the Waves, who have a losing record this season.

“We turned the ball over way, way too much,” Few said. “That was the story.”

Meanwhile, Portland, picked to finish last in the preseason coaches’ poll, beat San Francisco at home, 76-65.

It appears so far that the WCC is much deeper, much better top-to-bottom, than it’s ever been. And this conference race is expected to be a battle.

Yes, BYU’s first WCC road game of the season, at Saint Mary’s, will be a huge test. It will be the Cougars’ first contest played outside the state of Utah since beating Virginia Tech in the Maui Invitational on Nov. 27.

Pope knows all about longtime coach Saint Mary’s Randy Bennett, who has guided the Gaels to a 428-177 record since he took over in 2001-02. Last year, he led Saint Mary’s to a stunning upset over Gonzaga in the WCC Tournament championship game to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

“I actually have so much respect for this Randy Bennett. He’s been really, really good to me. In the summer, you get a chance to sit down with these coaches and talk to them,” Pope said. “He’s been great to me except every single Australian player that I’ve really busted my tail to recruit he ends up swooping in and stealing at the last second. So I’m a little bit upset about that. And he’s so good, man. I watched the Saint Mary-San Francisco game (last Thursday) and it brought a lot of humility to me in terms of what these two programs are doing right now. They’re good. What (Bennett) has done at Saint Mary’s — I mean, how do you say anything? It’s just incredible. Nobody would have believed he could have pulled this off when he first took that job with this level of consistency and the success that he’s had, it’s unbelievable. His teams are tough and they pass the ball and they shoot the ball.”

BYU flexed its defensive muscles last Saturday, holding LMU to just 38 points. The Cougars are now 9-0 when limiting opponents to 70 or fewer points.

“I don’t know that it was the best defensive performance (of the season) but I did feel like it was a sold-out commitment to trying every single possession with the frustration that was happening on the offensive end,” Pope said.

While BYU struggled shooting the ball for much of the game, it managed to hit 54% of its shots in the second half to pull away from the Lions.

To beat Saint Mary’s, the Cougars will need to be consistent on both ends of the floor.

Childs said BYU has been playing with an edge all season long, which has carried over into conference play.

“This team just has a different energy. This team is so prepared every single game,” he said. “We understand that every single game is make or break. We’ve been playing with that conference mentality and it’s helped prepare us.”

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