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Las Vegas • Veteran guard L.J. Rose probably said it best. The Cougars lost their composure too much late Wednesday night in the championship game of the MGM Main Event, and their undefeated season went out the window as well.

The Valparaiso Crusaders did the honors, holding off late-charging BYU 92-89 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in a game that was eerily similar to the last time the teams met. Valpo won that one, too, 72-70 at Madison Square Garden in New York City in the NIT semifinals.

The Cougars (4-1) overcame an eight-point deficit in the final five minutes and had an 85-83 lead with three minutes left thanks to a clutch 3-pointer by reserve forward Davin Guinn. But Shane Hammink made a driving layup over a cautious, foul-plagued Eric Mika, and Tevonn Walker nailed a trey with two minutes left to help Valpo (5-1) regain the lead with two minutes left.

The Cougars cut the advantage to 90-89 with a layup by Mika, but Horizon League Player of the Year Alec Peters scored with 11 seconds left, and Mika's desperation three-point attempt at the buzzer was too long. The Cougars got the opportunity for the potential tying basket because Valpo's Max Joseph missed two free throws with 2.9 seconds left.

"There are some areas we have to look at film, get better at," BYU's L.J. Rose said. "We lost our composure a little bit. But it is something we can control. Nobody likes to lose. It is a long season, but hopefully we can learn from this game and it can help us out at the end of the season."

The Cougars wanted to get the ball to Nick Emery on the baseline for the last shot, but Valpo came out in a 1-3-1 zone and scuttled that plan.

"So Eric popped to the corner. He got a shot, but obviously it wasn't the shot we wanted, or drew up," coach Dave Rose said. "Eric is capable of making that shot, but the percentages are pretty tough right there. We did get a clean look, but it didn't work out."

The miss ended a wild, chaos-filled game that featured 48 fouls, including 25 on the Cougars. Both teams made 27 free throws. The Cougars made 10 3-pointers to Valpo's nine. Both teams shot 43 percent from the field. It was that close — just like the final game of the 2015-16 season for the Cougars.

"What we saw was a group of guys that got tested really good, and we showed way too much frustration in our game, and didn't really [focus] on our execution," Rose said. "I thought the effort was good, but we got ourselves in a bad frame of mind trying to play a really good team probably 15, 17 minutes that way."

The frustration started early, as Mika, BYU's double-double machine the first four games, picked up his second foul just five minutes in the game and sat the rest of the first half. That repeated itself to start the second half, as Mika got foul No. 3 with 18:45 remaining and foul No. 4 with 16:28 left and finished playing just 19 minutes. He had 13 points and four rebounds.

"Obviously, we have some issues," Dave Rose said. "Eric came down here and played 19 minutes in both games. And we need him on the floor more than that.

"I thought the guys that we put in, there were so many good things we saw tonight from this game, but the bottom line is we had too many empty possessions on offense, and us defensively, they were able to do what they wanted to do against us."

That was evident late, when Mika had to back off on shots he usually blocks for fear of getting disqualified. Peters finished with 26 points after a slow start, and Shane Hammink added 23.

"We had to play a lot of zone to protect ourselves in the second half, to keep guys in there, and they attacked it pretty well, made some big shots," Rose said. "The driving of [Hammink], he put us in some tough spots and then we were in foul trouble, so all those aggressive plays, the guys are trying to avoid contact and stay in the game. That's all the kind of stuff that we just need to be better at, that we need to improve, and hopefully we can get better from this."

Emery led the Cougars with 18, while TJ Haws had 15. Davin Guinn sparked the Cougars off the bench with 11 points, including three 3-pointers in the second half.

However, the Cougars' shot selection left a lot to be desired. Haws, Emery and Elijah Bryant hoisted up long shots well before the shot clock expired.

"A lot of those shots, our post guy needs to touch the ball [first]," Rose said. "We talked a lot about it at halftime. I thought we were better in the second half. And we will learn. We are just letting [the other team] off the hook. And we can make those shots. I know that. I think that we have got a good plan and a good way to play, and we need to stay with it."

Early in the second half, BYU's frustration boiled over when Haws was whistled for an offensive foul, then was hit with a technical foul for tossing the ball at a Valpo defender's face. Those two free free-throws proved big down the stretch.

"The most important thing is that when we go through [frustrating times], guys need to keep their heads," Rose said. "I mean, guys are frustrated. … You gotta figure out how you are going to execute through that frustration."

­— Jay Drew