BYU star Richie Saunders had one glaring hole in his resume. Not anymore.

After every narrow defeat over the last four years, after every heartbreak, Richie Saunders kept coming back to the Huntsman Center hoping for a different result.

The captain of the Cougars’ high-powered offense, who spearheaded Sweet 16 runs and Big 12 tournament upsets, still couldn’t find the recipe to beat his rival on the road.

A four-point loss, a one-point loss, an overtime defeat.

Every way BYU could cough it up, it had at the Huntsman Center. Always the favorite, never the victor.

“Came up here and came up short,” Saunders put it.

But in his last chance on Saturday to exorcise the demons, Saunders delivered a beauty to erase the only hole on his BYU resume.

The senior piled on 24 points, 14 rebounds and three assists in a 89-84 win.

It nearly got ugly again, as the ninth-ranked Cougars fumbled away a double-digit lead and were in a one-possession game late. But Saunders crashed the glass to create six offensive rebounds and give the Cougars just enough to stay perfect in the Big 12.

“To be able to finish this one,” Saunders said, “it’s amazing.”

It wasn’t only Saunders who helped BYU win its first game in Salt Lake since 2021.

Star freshman AJ Dybantsa finished with 20 points and Rob Wright III had 23. It was Wright’s buckets in the final few possessions that officially put Utah’s upset hopes on ice.

The Utes, who staggered into the night with seven losses and no Big 12 wins, did their best to muck up BYU’s normally free-flowing attack. They brought three defenders at Dybantsa and collapsed onto Saunders.

Utah coach Alex Jensen kept pleading his rotation to keep the pressure on Dybansta even as they tired.

“It was very NBA of him to try to take out our best player,” BYU coach Kevin Young said of Jensen’s tactics. “But it allowed us some open threes.”

Saunders buried a couple. Kennard Davis banged a pair in front of Utah’s bench.

And eventually Dybantsa got his looks too as he pulled up from the elbow and punished the Utes in the open floor. He finished 6-of-11 from he field and got the line 12 times.

“That was super hostile,” Dybantsa said. “That was probably, besides my high school days, that was the most hostile environment I have been in. That was probably my welcome to the Big 12 moment.”

But it was really Saunders’ moment — a man who had been with BYU from the West Coast Conference doldrums to a national championship contender.

And the way he contributed on Saturday — as both the leading scorer and rebounder — typified how he’s contributed throughout his career. He’s always been the man to come up with whatever the moment required.

He has the best plus-minus in BYU history, better than Jimmer Fredette and Danny Ainge. He is fifth all-time in win shares for the Cougars — a stat that measures a player’s overall contribution to a game’s outcome.

It’s how he turned himself into an All-American candidate and first-team Big 12 player, winning 83 games along the way.

“He’s possessed, man. In a good way,” Young said. “He wasn’t going to lose tonight. Richie’s will to win is like nothing I’ve ever been around.”

In the days leading up to this game, Young pulled Dybantsa, Wright and Davis aside to give them a little background on the rivalry. He wanted them to understand the mission; to get a win for Saunders to cap off his resume. Every BYU great has to beat Utah on the road at least once.

“I know you didn’t grow up hating Utah or having a rivalry, but this game means a ton to our university. It means a ton to Richie,” Young told them. “Win it for him.”

Mission accomplished.

Now, Saunders can turn his sights on bigger wins and deeper NCAA Tournament runs in the coming months.

But his resume as a Cougar? There is nothing left to do in the regular season.