alt=Jeff CallSPOKANE, Wash. — No doubt, first-year BYU coach Mark Pope loves monumental challenges. He relishes seeing his teams confront seemingly insurmountable odds.
And on Saturday (8 p.m. MST, ESPN2), Pope’s Cougars face that kind of opportunity when they visit the No. 1 team in the nation, Gonzaga.
“It’s the greatest thing. This Gonzaga team is a gift to our league. They just are. The fact that we get to go on the road and play the No. 1 team in the country — we get to do that because they’re in our league. It’s awesome,” Pope said. “They’re that good. They’re so good that they can play bad and still win big. You could talk endlessly about how great that program is. We’re excited to go up and fight. Our guys believe that we can win. We believe we can win. I think our guys have a sense of how hard this is. But this is what you love as athletes and coaches — to have a chance.”
“The student section is crazy. Everyone in the gym lives and breathes Gonzaga basketball. It’s always a really fun time up there. They have a great team every year.” — BYU forward Dalton Nixon, on facing Gonzaga at the Kennel
Keep in mind that BYU (14-5, 3-1) will be without its leading scorer and rebounder, Yoeli Childs, who has missed the last three games due to a finger injury.
The Zags (19-1, 5-0), meanwhile, are coming off a 104-54 thrashing of Santa Clara at the McCarthey Athletic Center, nicknamed the Kennel, Thursday night. Gonzaga, which leads the nation in scoring, saw Joel Ayayi score a team-high 19 points, while Filip Petrusev and Admon Gilder added 18 points apiece. Corey Kispert contributed 16 and Killian Tillie chipped in nine.
With the win, coach Mark Few’s Gonzaga squad earned its 32nd consecutive regular-season conference win, tying Pepperdine for the West Coast Conference record, a mark the Waves set from 1991-1993. A win Saturday would break that record, which helps illustrate the Zags’ dominance of the WCC. Overall, Gonzaga has won five in a row against BYU.
Yet no WCC team has enjoyed more success at Gonzaga than the Cougars, who won three straight at the Kennel from 2015-17.
“It’s a really special atmosphere in college basketball. It’s one of the craziest places that I’ve played,” said senior forward Dalton Nixon. “The student section is crazy. Everyone in the gym lives and breathes Gonzaga basketball. It’s always a really fun time up there. They have a great team every year.”
Nixon was a freshman in 2015 when BYU shocked the No. 3 Zags 73-70 in the regular-season finale. That night, the Cougars snapped the Zags’ 22-game winning streak and their nation-leading, 41-game home court winning streak.
It stands as one of the highlights of Nixon’s career.
“My No. 1 highlight is probably making it to the NCAA Tournament my freshman year,” he recalled. “A lot of that came because we beat Gonzaga up in Spokane. The feeling afterward in the locker room was unreal, to be able to steal away a win from them. It was their Senior Night. So that was crazy. Hopefully, we can make something special like that happen again.”
Saturday’s game also marks another opportunity to play a top-5 team this season. The Cougars fell 71-56 to No. 4 Kansas in the Maui Invitational in November.
“The last team we played ... at an elite level like that was Kansas,” Nixon said. “To be able to see how far that we’ve come since then and to keep this thing rolling in league is going to be huge for us. It’s going to be a really good test for us to see where we’re at.”
Three years ago, Gonzaga was ranked No. 1 and boasted a 29-0 record going into the 2017 regular-season finale at the Kennel. In improbable fashion, BYU battled back from an early 16-point deficit and shocked the Zags 79-71. With that, the Cougars knocked off the No. 1 team in the country for the first time in school history, and they snapped Gonzaga’s 23-game winning streak against WCC opponents.
BYU hasn’t beaten the Zags since; but the Cougars are looking to pull off a major upset again at the Kennel.
The Cougars crushed San Diego 93-70 at home Thursday night, when six BYU players scored in double-figures, including Kolby Lee’s career-high 21 points.
“I think it gives us a lot of momentum going into the Kennel,” guard Connor Harding said of Thursday’s win. “But we’re playing a whole different beast on Saturday. We love playing up there. It’s going to be fun.”
BYU (14-5, 3-1) at No. 1 Gonzaga (19-1, 5-0)
Saturday, 8 p.m. MST
McCarthey Athletic Center, Spokane, Washington
TV: ESPN2
Radio: 1160 AM, 102.7 FM