Provo » Quoting Apollo Creed from the Rocky movie series, second-year Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio said, after apologizing for his poor English: "There ain't gonna be no rematch."

And that's a crying shame, along with the fact that Saturday night's war of an intersectional college basketball game was missed by most of the country -- at least those people that don't have the television network known as The mtn.

With the second-largest crowd in Marriott Center history, some 23,096 and just 10 shy of a record set almost 28 years ago, living and dying with every shot, rebound and pass almost to the final buzzer, No. 6-ranked Wake Forest held off BYU 94-87 to end the nation's longest home-court winning streak at 53 games.

"It was as good as any environment in the ACC [Wake Forest's conference]," Gaudio said. "They are as good a basketball team as there is [in the ACC]. They could play in our league. Trust me. They are very, very good. We were very fortunate to win."

The Demon Deacons improved to 12-0 and insured they will be undefeated when they take on No. 1 North Carolina at home next Sunday. The Cougars dropped to 11-2 and now will likely go another few weeks before cracking the Top 25, which is also a shame, the Deacons said to a man after the game.

After dropping 22 points on BYU, Wake Forest forward James Johnson compared the Cougars to the mighty Tar Heels.

"I've never played a team that plays like that before," he said.

This one was there for the taking, the Cougars said, but will go down as an opportunity lost because they went cold in the final five minutes.

After Gavin MacGregor's dunk gave BYU a 72-66 lead with 9:49 remaining, the Cougars started missing shots -- and free throws -- at a record clip. Jonathan Tavernari's three-pointer with 7:11 remaining and Jimmer Fredette's driving basket with 5:25 left stemmed the tide momentarily and gave the Cougars an 80-79 lead, but down the stretch the big shots wouldn't fall.

"In here, normally those shots go down," said Lee Cummard.

The Cougars' two leading scorers, Cummard and Tavernari, combined to go 13-for-37 from the field, and especially costly was Tavernari's 4-for-13 performance from three-point range.

His biggest miss came with the scored tied 84-84 and just under three minutes remaining. A minute later, with the Cougs down two, he bricked another one. Jackson Emery and Cummard missed key treys in the last minute.

"We weren't able to hit some shots we normally hit here in the Marriott Center," said Fredette, who led the Cougars with 23 points and made some phenomenal circus-like shots over the long and athletic visitors.

"We fought hard," Fredette said. "It's not like we let them come in here and win. Shots just didn't fall."

A game that was intense, heated and fiery from the opening tip -- thanks to the boisterous and deafening crowd -- almost boiled over with about 12 minutes remaining after several calls went against the Cougars and fans threw T-shirts and a water bottle on the floor.

At that point, Rose took the microphone and asked the students not to throw things on the floor: "Let the players play and let the refs ref," he pleaded.

The in-game admonition worked, because shortly thereafter Tavernari hit a three-pointer and Cummard followed with a fast-break layup to give BYU a 69-62 lead.

The Deacs would score 15 of the next 18 points however, to take a 77 -72 lead and ensure this one would go to the wire.

Rose said one of the biggest keys to the game was the fact that BYU's big men -- Chris Miles and MacGregor -- got in foul trouble.

"We got into a lot of foul trouble, and we didn't have our five-man on the floor [for stretches in the second half], which is important to us and what we run [offensively]," he said.

Still the coach said he was proud of the Cougars' effort.

"We had a really good team on the ropes, here in our building, and we couldn't finish 'em off. But they battled, and they were very competiive," he said.

Too bad, but there's not going to be another. Next up for the Cougars is a Tuesday home game against Western Oregon, an NCAA Division II team from Monmouth, Ore.

drew@sltrib.com