PROVO — BYU’s “Big 3” was big enough Friday night, combining for 70 points at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex.
The Cougars needed every one of them.
Richie Saunders poured in 29 points and eight rebounds; Robert Wright III added 23 points and six assists; and AJ Dybantsa supplied 18 points, four rebounds and three assists as No. 9 BYU held off Dayton 83-79 in the Magic bracket championship game of the ESPN Events Invitational in Kissimmee, Florida.
Javon Bennett, the Merrimack transfer playing in his hometown of Orlando, led Dayton with 22 points and three assists, and former North Carolina State freshman Bryce Heard added 16 points for the Flyers (6-2).
Amael L’Etang had 13 points and six rebounds for Dayton, but his intentionally missed free throw with 3 seconds left in a 3-point game was corralled by Saunders before the senior from Riverton made his fourth and fifth free throws on the other end to seal it for BYU.
“You’ve got to go through these type of games,” Dybantsa told BYU Radio after the game. “It’s going to be tough, especially when conference play comes about. It’s not always going to be easy.”
Of the Cougars’ 29 made field goals, Saunders, Wright and Dybantsa made 25 of them — on 43 attempts. The trio played between 34 and 38 minutes, with Saunders only sitting for roughly two minutes of game time.
Part of that was necessary, especially after key reserve Dawson Baker was injured in Thursday’s 72-62 win over Miami.
The redshirt senior from Coto De Caza, California, by way of UC Irvine sat courtside in a wheelchair and his lower leg sleeved during the game — though he was at the center of postgame celebrations involving Mickey Mouse and a bunch of popping streamers.
“He’s just a gritty player and does a lot of dirty work,” Dybantsa said. “Then he hits big-time shots, and we’re missing that. He’s my roommate, actually, and gives me a lot of wisdom in the game and in life.
“Hopefully we can still learn from his wisdom. We’re going to miss a lot. Hopefully he’s good.”
In Baker’s absence, Young only went nine deep in his rotation, including Aleksej Kostic, who played just four minutes.
“We’re going to have to find a bit more help off the bench, especially with Dawson’s situation,” said BYU coach Kevin Young, admitting that Dayton’s 18-0 advantage in bench points was “a huge concern.”
Bennett had 17 first-half points including five 3-pointers, and Dayton led BYU by as much as 9 early — but couldn’t hold on, in large part due to 1-of-7 free-throw shooting before the break.
Dybantsa took just three shots before the break, but rallied the Cougars (6-1) to tie twice. That was before De’Shayne Montgomery capped a 14-4 run with three minutes remaining to pull ahead, 36-26 en route to a 36-30 halftime lead.
The Flyers shot just 2-of-8 from the free-throw line. But BYU was just 33% from the field, including 3-of-11 from 3-point range, and never led in the first half.
Wright III had 11 points with three assists to lead the Cougars before the break. But things flipped in the second half.
“It was nothing too special,” Dybantsa said. “It’s just, go out there and fight harder. We came out too sluggish.”
The former Big 12 All-Freshman selection at Baylor led a 12-0 run to open the second half, and Dybantsa’s first triple gave the Cougars their first lead of the game, 42-39, with 16:45 remaining.
Keba Keita, who had 8 points, six rebounds and three steals, forced a takeaway and finished an and-one play in transition on the other end to stretch the run to 15-0, the longest of BYU’s season.
After shooting just 8-of-24 in the first half, the Cougars connected on 11 of their first 14 attempts including 3-of-4 from beyond the arc and used a 26-4 run to turn a 6-point halftime deficit into a 13-point lead with 12:47 to go.
Bennett scored just his second bucket of the second half, and Heard capped a 7-0 run to help Dayton tie the game back up 67-67 with 3:51 remaining.
But Wright and Saunders answered with back-to-back triples, and Saunders hit a bonus free throw to stretch the lead back to 74-70 and help the Cougars hold on for their 32nd straight win when leading with five minutes remaining.
“I think we’re in one of the toughest conferences, if not the toughest, in the Big 12,” Dybantsa said. “This is just preparing me for it.”
BYU returns home to host California Baptist on Wednesday, Dec. 3 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. MST on ESPN+.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
