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Provo • At times, BYU's 101-48 win over Southern Virginia on Wednesday night more closely resembled church-league basketball than college hoops.
For that, both sides can be forgiven, and the ragged, sloppy, but friendly nature of the game easily explained.
Southern Virginia is a provisional NCAA Division III school in Buena Vista, Va., that was purchased in 1996 by wealthy Mormons who wanted the "BYU experience" for their sons and daughters on the East Coast. It espouses the values of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the institution that owns and operates BYU.
In other words, this might have been the closest the state of Utah gets to high-level ward ball, although play on the whole was choppy and erratic.
"It was kind of a scrappy game," BYU coach Dave Rose acknowledged.
He was happy, though, because the undefeated Cougars got a tuneup game for their trip to the Maui Invitational, where they will meet No. 16-ranked San Diego State on Monday night. Meanwhile, many of the Knights got a chance to fulfill a lifelong dream of playing on the Marriott Center floor.
Punch and cookies for everyone.
Freshman Jake Toolson led seven Cougars in double figures with 15 points — making 5 of 8 three-point attempts — and BYU cruised to a 3-0 record while getting the back-to-back experience Rose wanted. BYU downed Arkansas-Little Rock 91-62 on Tuesday night.
Toolson's fifth three-pointer came with two seconds left and BYU students calling for him to put it up to get past the century mark. It is considered poor form, at least by BYU coaches, to try to score that late.
"Young guys will learn. That's all I will say about that," Rose said.
Noted the fast-learning Toolson: "Coach [Mark] Pope came up to me and said I'm a dork."
Call it Mormon-on-Mormon hardcourt crime.
The scrappy Knights feature more returned missionaries than BYU does, including Utahns Preston Eaton (Springville), Ben Canevari (Cottonwood), and Scott Edwards (Provo), who is injured and didn't make the trip. Eaton suffered the indignity of hearing the BYU student section chant "Lexi's better" when he was shooting free throws in the second half, a reference to his sister, a star on the BYU women's basketball team.
For BYU, Tyler Haws chipped in 13 points and now has scored in double figures in 51 straight games. Chase Fischer (10), Luke Worthington (12), Anson Winder (10), Dalton Nixon (10) and Isaac Neilson (13) joined Haws and Toolson in double figures.
"We had spurts where we were right," Haws said. "It is all about getting better, and I thought we got better." —
BYU 101, Southern Virginia 48
• Freshman Jake Toolson goes 5 of 8 from three-point range, while the other Cougars combine to go 0-for-13 from downtown.
• Seven Cougars reach double figures, including Tyler Haws, for the 51st straight game.