Second-year coach Kevin Young hasn’t found his lineup early in the season. The starting 5 has been chopping and changing in the last couple of games. It was the same once again against Wisconsin as Young reverted to Dawson Baker over Mikhailo Boskovic.  However, BYU still dominated. Richie Saunders scored 26 points to lead No. 9 BYU to a 98-70 victory over No. 23 Wisconsin. Kevin Young has finally started to see what this team should look like.

Freshman phenom AJ Dybantsa had 18 points and six rebounds to help the Cougars earn their first victory over a ranked opponent this season. Rob Wright III added 10 points, and his 11 assists were 3 more than the entire Wisconsin team. It was an all-around display that Kevin Young was satisfied with after the game.

“I thought tonight was the first game all year where everybody that we brought here, we brought here for a reason, and I think you saw that tonight. I think the role definitions getting more clear and that stretch that Khadim gave us a big lift. I thought Rob stepped up, Dominique Diomonde came in and gave us a lift, so it was good. I was worried, honestly, like man, how are we going to weather this right? Not only do we weather, but we increase the lead, which says a lot about the rest of the team,” Young said.

BYU was also thrown a curveball. A season-ending injury to likely rotation player Nate Pickens was followed by the suspension of Kennard Davis.  Davis was charged with a class B misdemeanor Driving Under the Influence in Provo earlier this week. Provo police issued a report indicating that Davis was allegedly in possession of marijuana after he was involved in a two-car crash. Despite those two being out of the picture, the BYU side is still looking strong enough nationally. 

AJ Dybantsa and Richie Saunders, the two heads of their attacks, picked their spots perfectly. Rob Wright was expected to be the orchestrator with some score-heavy games. In this one, he was the former. Keba Keita was solid around the rim with 6 rebounds, and Diomande reinforced their defense. Baker and Wright combined to become the third scorer for the team.

The variety in their offense was too much for Wisconsin to handle. Their bench packed a punch, combining for 29 points with Aleksj Kostic scoring 6 in only 3 minutes of play. “We build chemistry every day. We’re a new team, so I think it’s going to keep growing throughout the season,” Young said. This coordinated display was a result of some clever coaching from Kevin Young. 

Kevin Young’s Wisconsin Adaptation Works Out

BYU was struggling from the outside coming into this game. They were averaging only 8 scored per game off 25 attempts at 32%. The team wasn’t the fastest either, at 68.8 possessions per game. Coming up against Wisconsin, Kevin Young worked out some changes that enabled them to unlock their first-ranked opponent of the season. 

“I thought this was this particular game. I mean we we were really trying to space them out. We thought we had a speed advantage. So I thought really just holding true to that. And I thought you saw that’s how we got 34 threes up. I thought we did a good job with the spacing,” He said.

BYU went 14-34 at 41% while going 48% from the field. Even with that spaced-out system, they still penetrated the paint winning that battle 32-30. Focusing on outside shooting requires effective offensive rebounding, too. And BYU had that via a team effort as the team totaled 12 offensive rebounds while conceding 11. They came into this game averaging 11.3 offensive boards. However, if they want to continue this style, an improvement in this area is needed. 

“And then we were really trying to just execute the game plan defensively in terms of the personality of this game. You play a team like that that runs that continuity offense, you’re just going to kind of see the same thing over and over and you got to kind of stay the course, which we did,” Young further said.

Their defense was more impressive. The Badgers came into this game averaging 93.3 points per game and ranked ninth nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency through four games. BYU prevented them to 37.7 % FG and a minuscule average of .972 points per possession. It was a result of tremendous perimeter defense as Wisconsin went 7-for-29 from three-point range. Yes, Wisconsin looked off color at times, but it was also good defense from BYU.