No. 9-ranked Brigham Young has a talented trio of stars in Richie Saunders, Robert Wright III and AJ Dybantsa, and they were on top of their game Friday night in the championship game of the ESPN Events Invitational.
Saunders, the senior, scored 29 points and had eight rebounds, Wright, a sophomore, had 23 points and six assists, and Dybantsa, a freshman, scored 18 points as BYU knocked off Dayton 83-79 to win the two-day tourney’s Magic Bracket.
BYU struggled from the floor in the first half, hitting just 8-of-24 shots, and the Cougars, just like they did against Miami on Thursday, trailed at halftime 36-30. But the Cougars settled down in the second half, hitting 11 of their first 14 shots to go on a 26-4 run from which Dayton could never recover.
“We ended up kind of switching some of our matchups that allowed us to then switch some of their pick-and-roll action, which I thought kind of neutralized them,” BYU coach Kevin Young said. “It was a little bit of a chess match there for a minute with what they were doing.”
In the consolation game, Malik Reneau scored 19 of his 23 points in the first half, and Miami rolled past Georgetown 78-65.
Tru Washington added 17 points and Tre Donaldson scored 13. Miami (6-2) had a 41-20 lead at halftime. Former Dr. Phillips star Ernest Udeh Jr. grabbed 11 rebounds for UM.
The Hurricanes (6-2) will be at Mississippi on Tuesday as part of the ACC/SEC Challenge.
