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The Cougars kept their dim hopes of reaching the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament alive on Thursday night, clawing past San Diego 75-62 in front of 17,092 on Senior Night at the Marriott Center. The Cougars got a measure of revenge for a 77-74 loss to USD last month by out-rebounding the Toreros 38-23 and keeping Johnny Dee and Thomas Jacobs in check.

Dee had just 13 points on 5 of 13 shooting and Jacobs had just seven points and three boards after getting 24 and 14 in a career game at Jenny Craig Pavilion in Round I of the traveling partners' games this year. I suspect there will be a third matchup, because the Cougars are currently in third place in the WCC and the Toreros are in sixth.

And I suspect that Round III will be much tougher for BYU to win. BYU only made one more field goal, 23-22, than USD on Thursday, but enjoyed a 23-for-27 night at the free throw line, while the visitors were 11-for-18. USD made seven 3-pointers, BYU six.

Somewhat lost in BYU's fourth-straight win was the fact that junior guard Chase Fischer struggled and scored just two points, both free throws, in 14 minutes. The Cougars will need more production from their best long-range shooter if they hope to take down Portland or Gonzaga next week.

BYU coach Dave Rose said it will be difficult to balance minutes moving forward now that Anson Winder (15 points in 30 minutes) is back and Josh Sharp, Frank Bartley IV and Skyler Halford are playing well.

"Bringing Anson back, it is going to be interesting to see how the minutes kind of adjust out, because Anson played really well, and gave us a huge lift. And we have been playing Josh and Frank a lot more since Anson was out, and we played him a little bit more at the guard line instead of at the four, and so it will be interesting," Rose said. "We are going to have to massage our way through this, because Sky got his minutes down a little tonight, too, compared to what they were the last four or five games.

The most important thing is we got guys out there giving their full effort the whole time. Hopefully we can massage it where we got big enough players to help us continue to rebound."

Some notable individual accomplishments from Thursday's game, courtesy of BYU sports information:

* Tyler Haws scored 28 points to get within six of Jimmer Fredette's career scoring mark. Fredette had 2,599 points; Haws has 2,593 with at least four games remaining, probably more.

Haws was a perfect 10 of 10 from the free-throw line. He moved into seventh on the career 3-pointers list (154), passing Lee Cummard.

Haws was in double figures for the 116th time, one short of Danny Ainge's record. It was his 71st 20-point game. Fredette had 63 20-point games, in case you were wondering.

Haws is now 35th on the NCAA all-time scoring list.

* Kyle Collinsworth posted his 12th double-double of the season with 16 points and 11 rebounds. He passed Bernie Fryer on BYU's all-time scoring list, and is now in 45th place with 1,041 points.

* Anson Winder made one 3-pointer and is now in 20th place in BYU history in career 3-pointers with 99.

A few leftover comments from Senior Night:

Coach Dave Rose's overall comments:

"I thought it was quite an emotional night in there. The energy was good. It was a great crowd. They saw a really good college basketball game — two teams that were really prepared and both battling each other. It was good to see Anson back in the lineup. I thought he played really well, gave us a huge spark coming off the bench in the first half, and then we started him in the second half. Those first four minutes really gave us a lift.

I thought Frank was really good tonight for us, and obviously Kyle and Ty were terrific as usual. Most of the time, those guys are pretty good.

It was a good win for us, and we will get ready for a really challenging road trip next week and see how we do."

Rose on whether one of his teams has gone seven minutes before scoring:

"Yeah, I remember some tough starts on Senior Night. I don't know if it was actually that situation where we got shut out for awhile. But they had a good plan, and they were really consistent with it. We didn't score a lot — we didn't score any — in that period. But there were quite a few fouls called, which really helped us later in the half when we got into the 1 and 1, and the bonus, and I think we got 13 points from the free-throw line in the first half. A lot of that had to do with how the game was being played the first six or seven minutes."

Rose on the 85 percent free-throw shooting:

"Probably the biggest thing is our big guys are starting to really convert at the line, and our guards have been good all year long at the line. Corbin [Kaufusi] stepped up there and hit two big ones. You get those guys stepping up there with confidence and hitting those things, I think it really helps everybody."

Rose on what the emotions were like on Senior Night:

"After the game, Ty mentioned to me that it he couldn't really believe it was his last time playing out there. Those are the times where you just realize that, whoa, something big just happened. I am glad he played well, I am glad Sky got good minutes. Josh played well and Anson had a great game.

"For me — I wasn't going to comment on this, but maybe I will say something about it. It is really hard to win games, and we got a lot of stuff going on — guys chasing records. The fans come here, and they want to have a good time, but there is nothing more important than us winning the game. And I want these guys to get all these records, but I hope that the fans understand that the most important thing for me, and the most important thing for these players, is that we can get on a run. We have won our first four-game winning streak in the season. We had four other tries at it, and we missed every time on the fourth one, so now let's see if we can get five."

Tyler Haws on his emotions on Senior Night:

"Anson and I, we walked into the building at the same time. We just kind of looked at each other — this is weird.

Just proud of our guys, proud of our effort. We got off to kind of a slow start, couldn't buy a bucket for awhile, but we got it going.

So many fond memories in this building. When you put in so much hard work with all these guys, just winning and finishing on a good note feels really good."

Haws on how hard it is to play in a game when a lot of fouls are called:

"It is hard. You never know what kind of whistle you are going to get, especially in this league, and so there was tons of fouls. We just talked about being aggressive and going right at them because we knew we were getting those calls. So we were able to get into the bonus early and get to the foul line and get some easy points. That's one of the things, you just have to get into the game and see how it is being called."

Haws on the end of game andt fans yelling for him to shoot:

"I heard them chanting how many points i had left. But no, I was just trying to make a play and finish the game out strong. San Diego is a team that is going to keep fighting and fighting. So I just tried to finish the game out strong."

Haws on whether he's ready to break the scoring record so he can stop being asked about it:

"It will be good to have it behind me, for sure. I hear about it a lot. But just trying to make as many plays as I can before this is over, and just enjoy the ride."

Anson Winder on his emotions on Senior Night:

"It is hard to take it all in. It is the last time you prepare for a home game, the last time you come here and go through the warmup and the whole anticipation and buildup for this game. It was a weird feeling, but after all the emotions of going through senior night, it felt good to get out and play and run around with the guys again, and to get a win in your last home game of the year, it is a great feeling."

Winder on the rebounding margin and how that happened:

"Just mentality and toughness. I think down at their place, they beat us pretty good on the boards. So we made that a conscious effort tonight to make sure that didn't happen. I think we did that tonight. Our bigs did a good job of hitting bodies and rebounding. Of course, Kyle and Tyler always do their part and I think everyone else just followed their lead."