No. 25 Cougars look to avoid emotional letdown against shorthanded Arizona State
Coach Kevin Young says BYU was drained mentally and physically after Saturday’s 96-95 upset of Arizona
Richie Saunders is Big 12 Player of the Week, BYU received its first national ranking of the season, landing at No. 25 in the AP Top 25 survey, and several publications named the Cougars their national team of the week after back-to-back wins over blue bloods Kansas and Arizona.
Young is not that impressed. It all means nothing, the first-year BYU coach said Monday, if the Cougars stumble Wednesday night (7:30 p.m. MST, ESPN+) against Arizona State at Desert Financial Arena. No game in the ultra-difficult Big 12 can be called a trap game, but this one comes close, for a variety of reasons.
Chiefly, it is because No. 25 BYU (19-8, 10-6) is physically and emotionally drained after edging Arizona 96-95 Saturday night in Tucson, while ASU (13-14, 4-12) was bulldozed by BYU 76-56 on New Year’s Eve in Provo.
Also, Arizona State will be shorthanded but is still playing with purpose and intent, despite its status as one of the worst teams in the league; leading scorer B.J. Freeman was dismissed before the Sun Devils routed Kansas State 66-54 on Sunday in Manhattan, while freshman center Jayden Quaintance left the game with a few minutes remaining with a lower-leg injury of some sort.
The Arizona Republic reported that Quaintance, who had scored 18 points in the win that snapped ASU’s six-game losing streak, left the arena on crutches.
Young got in front of ASU’s situation with his players after the Cougars practiced Monday at the Phoenix Suns’ practice facility. The first-year BYU coach was a Suns assistant from 2020 to 2024.
Arizona State “is a team that is playing free. There are more guys getting an opportunity that are dangerous. They just proved it against Kansas State,” Young said. “You know, just trying to get ahead of those things and actually addressing them as opposed to dusting them under the rug is kinda my approach there.”
