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Provo • It was almost time to hit the panic button in Provo on Thursday night.
Almost.
The BYU Cougars' shooting woes continued in front of 12,452 at the Marriott Center, but they made just enough free throws down the stretch to hold off San Francisco 78-74 to snap their two-game losing skid in the West Coast Conference.
Anson Winder's two free throws with 3.2 seconds left sealed the win for BYU, which improved to 6-4 in WCC play, 16-7 overall. The Cougars improved to 3-5 in games decided by five points or fewer.
"We've been in that situation before," Winder said. "It feels good to be on the top side of it."
Tyler Haws led all scorers with 28 points and is now just three points away from passing Danny Ainge for second-place on BYU's all-time scoring list. The Cougars needed every one of them, too, because USF simply would not go away.
BYU coach Dave Rose said his team is "still a work in progress" after the late-January win, perhaps the latest in the season in his 10 years he's ever said that.
"We didn't have a lot of things go right for us" but still got the win, Rose said.
The Cougars blasted the Dons 99-68 in San Francisco on Jan. 3, but had a much more difficult time with coach Rex Walters' team this time around, struggling to stop USF's big men inside. Mark Tollefsen led the Dons with 22 points on 10 of 14 shooting.
The Cougars shot just 40.6 percent, after shooting 60 percent in that blowout at Memorial Gymnasium. They were just 3 of 20 from 3-point range, after making 15 of 28 on the road on Jan. 3.
"We figured it would be a little bit tougher tonight," Rose said. "And it was."
BYU opened seven-point leads four times in the second half, but couldn't get past that advantage as the Dons' Tollefsen seemingly had an answer every time USF fell into a hole.
Tollefsen's soft jumper with 4:12 remaining got USF within a point, 65-64, but the Cougars stretched the lead to 69-64 on clutch free throws by freshman Isaac Neilson and a Haws layup.
USF scratched back, though, and were within a point, 71-70, when Chris Adams made a 3-pointer from the corner with 2:10 left.
An Anson Winder free throw and layup gave BYU a 74-70 lead with 36 seconds remaining, but the Dons' Matt Christensen was credited with a tip-in nine seconds later and the Dons were still in it.
However, Skyler Halford and Frank Bartley IV hit free throws around a USF air ball, and when Winder drilled two from the line with 3.2 seconds left, the Cougars had a 78-74 lead and the win.
The Cougars shot just 37 percent in the first half (12 of 32) and couldn't get more than an eight-point lead before halftime, partly because they missed five free throws.
Winder's free throw with 1:21 left gave the Cougars a 32-24 lead, but USF closed the half on a 6-2 run and trailed just 34-30 at the break.
Haws had 16 in the first half.
San Francisco found success pounding the ball inside and getting to the free-throw line, where the nation's fifth-worst free-throw shooting team in the country went 7 for 9 in the first half. In the second half, however, USF was 8 of 15 from the charity stripe.
USF was just 1 of 9 from 3-point range in the first half.
Twitter: @drewjay —
BYU 78, San Francisco 74
• Tyler Haws scores 28 points and the Cougars hold off the Dons after drubbing them by 31 points on Jan. 3 in San Francisco
• Anson Winder's two free throws with 3.2 seconds left seals the win for BYU
• The Cougars were just 3 of 20 from 3-point range.