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Many in the crowd of 16,202 who watched BYU get rolling late and topple Pacific 84-59 left the Marriott Center on Saturday talking about two things: the technical foul of the Tigers that enabled the Cougars to continue what turned out to be a 14-0 run, and why coach Dave Rose removed Kyle Collinsworth from the game with 37 seconds left when KC was within an assist of his sixth triple-double.
Well, I have you covered.
First, the almost triple-double.
Here's Rose's reply when I asked him why he took Collinsworth out of the game:
"That should prove to you that when I tell you I don't know [what a player's stats are], I don't know. The bottom line is this thing is dialed in for one thing. We are trying to win the game.
That made me really nervous at the end, how it was really chippy, and there were guys in each other's face. Something happens in the last couple seconds of a game, and that affects your next game. So that's kind of why I made the decision to sub. And when I got him out I realized that something was going on because everybody booed.
But the one thing about it, my assistants told me when I got in [the locker room] that I think he had a pass to Chase [Fischer] for one, and a pass to Sky [Halford] for another one, so it is probably on them more than it is on me."
Collinsworth pretty much laughed off the whole deal in his post-game remarks. In case you missed it, he had 12 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists. His ninth assist came with about 1:45 remaining when he fed Corbin Kaufusi for a dunk.
As Rose mentioned, Fischer missed a 3-pointer with about 49 seconds left after taking a pass from Collinsworth. Twelve seconds later, or thereabouts, Collinsworth fed Halford, but instead of pulling up for a 10-footer, Halford took it to the rim and was hammered by UP's Gabriel Aguirre.
That's when Rose had seen enough of the chippy play and called Collinsworth to the bench.
"Well, it has happened several times, so it is all good," Collinsworth said. "We won, we pulled ahead down the stretch and finally got that feeling we had Thursday night. So it was good to end the game like that. That's all that matters. It has happened before. I am sure it will happen again. So we will move on. It is good."
Asked if he was surprised he was subbed out, Collinsworth shook his head.
"No. I had a couple chances. It is what it is, so it is all good," he said.
Fischer and Collinsworth are good friends, so I asked Collinsworth if he'd say anything to Fischer — who was 4 of 7 from 3-point range — about the miss.
"No," Collinsworth said. "He has made plenty to even get me that close. He's made so many to even get me to nine or to get me the 10th, so no, heavens no, it is not a big deal. We are all going to survive."
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As far as the technical foul on UP's Jacob Lampkin, Rose called it "a big part of the game" and said it was "pretty interesting, how all that played out."
Rose's description: "Going back, obviously Ty [Haws] was in a tussle with some other guy, and then going back down the floor, one of their players kind of bumped him, you know. And the referee felt like it was a technical foul, so he called it."
I asked Pacific coach Ron Verlin to describe what he saw on the technical foul, which came with 9:48 remaining and BYU leading 54-50.
"What I seen was Haws was talking a bunch of mess in our guy's face, and they chucked him, so that's what I seen," Verlin said.