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Honolulu • Coach Dave Rose's family, including seven grandchildren, gathered in his hotel room at 6:30 a.m. Friday morning to open Christmas presents and celebrate the holiday, then went downstairs to the lobby for a 7:30 a.m. pregame breakfast.
"Can't say we've done that before," Rose noted.
Three hours later, his basketball team gave him an even nicer gift, turning in perhaps its best overall performance of the season in an 84-76 win over Northern Iowa in the consolation bracket final of the Diamond Head Classic at the Stan Sheriff Center. The 9-4 Cougars finished 2-1 at the eight-team tournament and took fifth place.
More importantly, BYU showed it could execute down the stretch of a fairly close game, its final nonconference game before facing Saint Mary's next Thursday in its WCC opener in Moraga, Calif. The Cougars led for all but one minute, 46 seconds against a UNI team (8-5) that beat North Carolina when it was No. 1 in the country and Iowa State when it was No. 5.
"I was just telling the guys that when you compare this game right here to our second game, our Long Beach State game, there is so much improvement," Rose said. "We got to the free-throw line and made free throws. We got late in the game and executed and got the shots we wanted. So that shows the signs of a team that has improved and matured and is ready for [conference play]."
The Cougars were 14 for 14 from the free-throw line in the second half, including 12 for 12 in the game's final four minutes. They held one of the country's best 3-point shooting teams to 12 for 35 from beyond the arc.
"That's a good win," Rose said. "You beat a team that has beat, at the time, the No. 1 team in the country and the No. 5 team in the country, that should give our guys a lot of confidence."
Senior guard Chase Fischer led the way again, scoring 26 points two days after setting tournament records of nine 3-pointers and 41 points in the 96-66 win over New Mexico. BYU led by 15 in the first half and by 12 early in the second half, but the Panthers finally got some 3-pointers to drop and cut the deficit to 57-54 with 8:22 remaining.
BYU freshman Nick Emery headed to the bench with his fourth foul and UNI clearly had the momentum. Then Fischer scored eight straight points — two 3-pointers and two free throws — and freshman Zac Seljaas (12 points) finished the run with a 3-pointer with just under five minutes left and the Cougars could breathe again.
"My first couple of shots hit the other side of the backboard," Fischer said. "So I thought it was going to be a rough day. But I have a new mentality. I am just going to play and kind of let the game come to me."
That he did.
The Cougars went small a lot to combat UNI's sharpshooters, but still enjoyed a 41-27 rebounding advantage. Kyle Collinsworth grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds to go with 12 points and six assists, while Kyle Davis just missed his seventh double-double with 10 points and nine rebounds.
"We just made defensive stops," Collinsworth said. "And I feel like we made big shots when we needed to. … We made some timely hoops and got some timely stops."
Nate Austin started for the second-straight game and center Corbin Kaufusi, an 11-game starter, didn't play, although he was healthy.
"Corb is fine," Rose said. "This game was just a situation where we were going to play smaller guys. Jamal [Aytes] coming in and playing well [contributed to Kaufusi's DNP]."
Fischer (8 for 8) and Emery (6 for 6) combined to go 14 for 14 from the free-throw line, and Emery has now made 20 straight free throws.
"Nick Emery has played great for us all year and kind of struggled in the first half, but the dude came back and made plays," Fischer said. "It was a great team win."
Collinsworth said it felt "weird" to play on Christmas Day, the first time a BYU team has ever played on the holiday, and called it "bizarre" and "different."
Fischer said coming back and beating two quality opponents after Tuesday's heartbreaking 85-82 overtime loss to Harvard — which met No. 3 Oklahoma late Friday for the tournament title — showed this is a resilient group that is starting to click.
"Now we can go enjoy Christmas, so it is good," he said.
Twitter: @drewjay —
Storylines
R Chase Fischer scores 26 points and Kyle Collinsworth grabs a career-high 16 rebounds as the Cougars finish 2-1 at the Diamond Head Classic.
• The Cougars make 19 of 21 free throws, including their last 17, to hold off the Panthers in the tournament's fifth-place game.
• BYU (9-4) meets Saint Mary's on Thursday in its West Coast Conference opener.