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PROVO — BYU’s search for a third big-time scorer continued Thursday night.
But for now, the “Yoeli and Eli Show” has done fine.
Yoeli Childs and Elijah Bryant combined for 46 points to help the BYU men’s basketball team pull away from a six-point halftime lead for an 83-63 win Thursday night over Pepperdine in West Coast Conference play.
Childs added 12 rebounds and six assists, and TJ Haws supplied 10 points and three assists for the Cougars, who improved to 14-4 and 3-2 in WCC play.
And yet Childs said the game hinged on a series of plays on the defensive end of the court; BYU opened the second half with four-straight stops, racking up the “kills” installed by associate head coach Heath Schroyer.
“Our defense leads to our offense, and when we guard we also shoot pretty well,” said Childs, whose team held the Waves to 40 percent shooting in the second half. “The first half, we were shooting the ball well — but a lot of times, that doesn’t last for the full 40 minutes.”
The Cougars shot 61 percent from the field in the first half, but led just 40-34 after Pepperdine (3-14, 0-5 WCC) hit five 3-pointers to keep it close.
That didn’t last long. BYU opened the second half on a 10-2 run, including back-to-back threes by Bryant, and the Cougars took a 64-40 lead to pull away with 12:17 remaining on Zac Seljaas’ 3-pointer, his first trey of conference play in 2018.
🎥: @Elijah_Bryant3 hit 5 of 8 3-pointers, including this one early in the second half, to lead BYU with 25 points in an 83-63 win over Pepperdine pic.twitter.com/Ak4jWnhzBE
— Brandon Judd (@brandonljudd) January 12, 2018
“It was a good bounce-back win for our guys,” BYU coach Dave Rose said. “In the first half, they had us spread out good. I think we made some nice adjustments at halftime, and we were much more aggressive offensively in the second half. It’s a good win for our guys.
“The key in this game was we got help from 4-5 different guys. That’s probably the difference tonight.”
For the first time in 14 games, Rose made a change to the starting lineup. Seljaas started in place of center Luke Worthington, leaving the Bountiful High grad as a stretch-four option and moving Childs to the low post.
Seljaas finished with eight points, four assists and three rebounds. The former Braves sharpshooter connected on 3-of-3 shots from the field, including his first 3-point attempt since the non-conference finale Dec. 23 against Texas Southern, with no turnovers.
“He’s a really good player, and we really need him,” Rose said of Seljaas. “His line tonight was tremendous. He was 3-for-3, 1-for-1, 1-for-1, a couple of steals, no turnovers; that’s a great line for Zac, and hopefully, he can get some confidence and build on it.
“That will really help our team.”
The move also freed up Childs, who tied a season-high with his game-best six assists.
“Zac stepped up tonight; he made some great passes inside,” Childs said. “He finished the ball well, and it was great playing with him.
“We definitely miss Luke’s presence on the defensive end; he’s loud. But we are comfortable with either one out there.”
BYU bounced back from a humiliating 67-67 loss at Pacific last Saturday.
“The first half, I thought we had an OK mentality,” Haws said. “But I think in the second half, we came out and our mentality on both ends of the floras really good.
“In league play, it’s all about making adjustments and I thought we did a good job tonight.”
Childs and Bryant combined for 18 of the Cougars’ first 21 points. The big man from Bingham High had three rim-rattling dunks in the first 10 minutes of the game.
But Pepperdine made five 3-pointers in the first half and tied the game at 24-all when Knox Hellums hit a jumper with 7:34 left in the half.
Haws found Bryant for a 3-pointer with just over three minutes left to go up 32-27, and Childs found Haws for a reverse layup in transition that capped a 6-0 run to end the half 40-34 for BYU.
“Every player on our team is great, offensively,” Childs said. “One night, TJ is going to come out and drop 30 or Zac will drop 25. We’ll take what the defense gives us.
“Lately, it happens to be me and Eli getting open looks. But … me and Eli are shooting the most shots.”
BYU travels to Santa Clara for an 8 p.m. MST tipoff Saturday evening.
