Oklahoma City » Senior forward Jonathan Tavernari , who has been a part of more wins than any player in BYU history, 103, said he will never forget his last game as a Cougar on Saturday night.
"At least we can say we were eliminated by a really, really good team," he said.
Having gone 1-for-4 from the three-point line in the 84-72 loss to Kansas State, Tavernari leaves as the all-time best three-point shooter in school history, too, having made 265 to easily outdistance second-place Mark Bigelow , who had 213.
With 172, junior Jimmer Fredette is already fourth on the school's all-time list in that category.
Tavernari closed out his career with 1,519 points, 12th most at BYU.
Fredette has 1,531 and is in 11th place.
"The thing I am the most proud of is being the winningest player ever at BYU," Tavernari said.
Cougars in the Big Dance
With the loss, BYU is now 12-28 in the NCAA Tournament. It was the Cougars' 25th year in the tournament.
No program in the country has made more NCAA appearances without getting to the Final Four than BYU. Missouri is second with 24.
The Cougars have not advanced past the second round since 1981, when they were a No. 6 seed and defeated Princeton, UCLA and Notre Dame before losing to the top-seeded Virginia in the Region Finals.
In 1993, the Cougars had a one-point lead over Kansas with five minutes remaining in a second-round game in Chicago, but lost 90-76.
"This season was as special as it could be," said BYU coach Dave Rose . "... We just ran into a great, great team."
Rooting interest
There was a lot of pregame conjecture regarding which team Kansas fans would cheer for -- BYU or rival Kansas State. But when the No. 1 Jayhawks were stunned 69-67 by Northern Iowa, thousands of Kansas fans didn't even stick around to watch the second game of the session in Oklahoma City.
A lot of Kansas State fans were seemingly in their seats.
Kansas State easily had 10 times more fans in the arena than BYU, with Manhattan being about 290 miles away from the Ford Center.
Haws stays hot at the line
Tyler Haws made all six of his free throws to extend his school record for consecutive made free throws to 48. He won't be able to improve on it any time soon because he is leaving on an LDS Church mission to the Philippines in June.
"It is weird, being done with basketball for awhile," Haws said.
