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The Cougars fell 82-77 to red-hot Saint Mary's here tonight at sold-out McKeon Pavilion (3,500-plus) to drop into fourth place in the West Coast Conference standings, but coach Dave Rose might have even bigger concerns than that.

For the second-straight game, BYU's second-leading scorer, senior guard Anson Winder, sat on the bench in a warmup suit, unable to play because of a sprained right knee.

Rose said Winder wasn't even close to playing because after doing a little bit in practice Friday, he woke up Saturday morning with a lot more pain in the knee.

"We will see what happens with his recovery," Rose said when I asked him if it is a good time for a midweek bye to get Winder's knee right. "I think the doctors and trainers, they give that sprain kind of a grade, and maybe we misinterpreted it a little bit with the grade. You get a little time and you feel like three or four days will be OK, but he still has a little ways to go. We will see."

The Cougars lost, falling to 5-3 and 15-6, because they were killed on the boards. Saint Mary's won the rebounding battle 41-28 and had a whopping 17 offensive rebounds, which they turned into 12 second chance points. It seemed like more than that.

They had no answer for Brad Waldow, the mouthguard-wearing senior who had 24 points and 14 rebounds and with their best rebounder, Kyle Colinsworth, in foul trouble and playing only 28 minutes, they struggled.

"Waldow was a beast inside," said Tyler Haws, who led all scorers with 28 points and went 9 of 19 from the field. "We have to figure out a way to handle him."

That way might be Nate Austin, who should be back from a torn hamstring injury when the Gaels visit the Marriott Center on Feb. 12.

Amazingly, the Cougars — who trailed by as many as 11 points in the second half — were close with 46 seconds left when Skyler Halford hit a 3-pointer, trailing just 80-77.

But after a timeout, Halford was called for a blocking foul on SMC's Aaron Bright some 30 feet away from the basket. Bright extended his arm, Halford fell backwards, and what probably should have been a no-call sent the Stanford transfer to the line. He made both with 23 seconds left, and SMC had its ninth-straight win.

"It didn't have anything to do with the possession, the play," Rose said of the call. "The contact looked to me like it was initiated by the offensive player. Skyler was doing his best to try speed them up and not let them just run the clock down.

We did not want to foul, but we ended up getting called."

Actually, neither half ended well for the Cougars. They were up 33-27 with five minutes left in the first half, but SMC ended the half on an 18-4 run. That included a 10-0 run to take a 45-37 lead into the break.

Rose said that stretch was painful to watch, and can be pointed at as the stretch that won it for the home team.

"What really complicated that is we had two or three really good looks on offense and then we kinda got stuck on 37 for awhile going into the half," he said.

BYU failed to score after Chase Fischer (19 points) hit a 3-pointer with 2:25 left in the half. "The combination of that — we didn't finish that half very well. But I thought our guys came out in the second half and we weren't as effective as I thought we could be, but we still cut into that lead the first four or five minutes. Then things got bad and got away from us and we missed a couple of shots, turned it over, and we got a timeout and got them settled down. The guys were able to find themselves and not just go away, but we came away a couple plays short."

And now they are a couple players short — which is obviously not the way they want to finish January.