Provo • Senior forward Noah Hartsock didn’t have to carry the Cougars on Saturday, like he has done most of the season, because Pepperdine was terribly overmatched and the perimeter players discovered their 3-point shooting touch.
Hartsock scored just nine points in 23 minutes in BYU’s 86-48 win over the Waves, only the second time this season he hasn’t reached double figures.
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But he was still a force on the other end of the floor, recording three blocked shots to move into third place on the school’s career blocks list with 167. He passed Russell Larson, who had 166 in 1991-95.
"Not only individually did we play well, but we played well as a team," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "I thought that the pace of the game from the very start was how we wanted to play, and we continued to get energy as we scored the ball and got stops."
Hartsock blocked a shot on Pepperdine’s first possession, a possession that saw the Waves take five shots and go away scoreless. They missed the first three before Hartsock and Brandon Davies swatted away the next two.
"We were trying to execute every possession in a game where there was some separation in the score, but we were still executing at a really high rate," Rose said.
Hartsock was still 3-for-5 from the field and grabbed five rebounds. The 23 minutes was almost a season low; he played just 18 in a similar, 93-78 blowout of Buffalo on Dec. 20.
The most pleasant surprise from Saturday, Rose said, was that another senior, Charles Abouo, broke out of mild slump with 23 points on 7-of-11 shooting. For the first time in a while, Abouo wasn’t battling foul trouble. In fact, Abouo and Davies combined to play 54 minutes without fouling.
"I think that Charles played at a [better pace]. He wasn’t in foul trouble, and so he had a chance to play multiple minutes, back-to-back minutes," Rose said. "His time has kind of been chopped up the last three, four weeks, and I think it has kind of hurt the flow of his game. Tonight, to be able to leave him out there for big chunks of a time, I thought really helped us."
Twittter: @drewjay
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