Provo

It was dubbed the biggest regular-season game in the history of the Mountain West and ... it turned out being everything it had been dubbed to be.

Except there was no dubble-u for the team that was supposed to win.

And there was no star player available to bail that team out.

Tenth-ranked New Mexico found a way to beat 13th-ranked BYU on Saturday in the Marriott Center, a place the Cougars almost never lose, especially when there are 22,644 screaming nutjobs loaded into it. Final numbers on the board this time: 83-81.

While the Lobos' path to victory took some strange turns, including blasting through a real roundabout when Jimmer Fredette seized up during the first half and played just one minute in the second, there were some predictables.

One, the old barn was a madhouse.

"It feels like the floor is shaking under your feet when you're trying to shoot here," said Lobos point guard Dairese Gary, who must have liked the feeling, hitting 7 of 12 shots and scoring 23 points. "It's crazy. The noise, the energy level ... it's hard to play in BYU's arena."

"Twenty-two thousand people going crazy," Tyler Haws said, bobbing his head. "There's nothing better than that."

Unless it's winning in front of 22,000 people going crazy.

Two, the intensity carried over to players and coaches on both teams, who got wrapped in the emotion and commotion and periodically turned the court into a wreckage yard.

"It was a physical game," said Dave Rose. "A real physical game."

In the final minute, Jonathan Tavernari mixed it up with the Lobos' Darington Hobson, a bit of folderol that led to a heated exchange between Tavernari and Steve Alford afterward, when the New Mexico coach called Tavernari an "a------." Tavernari later went to the Lobo locker room to apologize.

"It's emotional, playing for a conference championship," said BYU back-backup point guard Michael Loyd Jr.

The whole affair sported the presence of an NCAA Tournament game, not necessarily a good thing for the Cougars, given their past futility in that setting.

Three, it was tighter than a clenched fist.

The outcome essentially came down to one last possession, New Mexico up two with 8.6 seconds left and BYU with the ball. That's when Loyd Jr. handled the bean, thought for a nanosecond about taking it to the cup -- just the way he had so masterfully throughout the second half -- but then tossed it to Noah Hartsock deep in the low post. Hartsock put up a shot that was blocked by Hobson, also swatting the Cougars' last hope.

"It was a great [scoring] opportunity," Loyd Jr. said. "If I could do it again, I'd give it to Noah. I've got faith in Noah. Good defense by the Lobos."

Those Lobos (now 27-3) pulled off something on Saturday few opponents of BYU (now 26-4) have been able to accomplish this season: They hit the offensive boards hard, outrebounding the Cougars 13-8 at that end, and overall, 43-32. And they also, at least through some stretches, slowed BYU's transition game.

They outshot them, 50 percent to 46 percent, they totaled three more assists, always a key stat for BYU, a team that is driven by the dimes, and they limited the Cougars' big scoring runs.

But the strangest development was Fredette's sudden illness, apparently a digestive malady that nailed him in the first half and nailed him to the bench in the second. He never played after the first minute of the back half.

"At shootaround today, he seemed fine," Rose said. "He came down with some kind of stomach virus. We don't know. ... I don't know."

Nobody knew.

If a player is sick, he's sick. But the juxtaposition of Fredette, the Cougars' leader, sitting courtside while his teammates soldiered on without him in the Biggest Game in the History of the Mountain West, was just ... odd.

Gary called Fredette's absence "huge."

Even if Fredette had played in that second half, it would take an elasticized imagination to see him outplaying Loyd Jr., BYU's third-string point guard (backup Lamont Morgan Jr. was out with a freshly scoped knee).

Loyd Jr. gave the Cougars 19 second-half points on 8-for-9 shooting, including repeated explosive, clutch drives to the rim.

BYU could have used one last explosive, clutch drive on that final possession, while Fredette watched from the bench.

GORDON MONSON hosts the "Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com .