Analysis: No. 13 BYU almost pulls off a comeback for the ages, falls just short in 86-83 loss to No. 1 Arizona

In the space of one minute and six seconds, BYU’s prospects for the remainder of the 2025-26 college basketball season went from dire and hopeless to hopeful and encouraging.

That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like to the 18,239 fans jammed into the Marriott Center on Monday night for a Big 12 heavyweight fight pitting undefeated and No. 1-ranked Arizona and the No. 13 Cougars, who easily could have lost to the nation’s best team by 20 points, with the way they played for the first 38 minutes.

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But they didn’t. Some how, some way, the Cougars made a game of it, saving some face in front of a national television audience in what was being billed as the most significant game at the Marriott in 15 years.

Coach Kevin Young doesn’t believe in moral victories, but this one almost qualifies, as BYU nearly made up an 11-point deficit in the final 66 seconds before falling 86-83 when its miraculous comeback came up one play short.

“It says a lot about our team, the fight we had,” Young said.

With 11.6 seconds remaining and the Cougars trailing 84-83 but in possession of the ball, Young set up a two-option play. The first option was to get the ball to a possible NBA No. 1 draft pick in June, AJ Dybantsa. But Arizona had that covered, Young said.

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The next option was for point guard Rob Wright to get to the rim after taking a pass into the backcourt, and either make a floater or get fouled, or both. That play almost worked, except that Arizona’s Brayden Burries swooped in and blocked the shot, and no foul was called.

Burries then buried two free throws with 2.1 seconds remaining, and Wright’s half court heave at the buzzer didn’t come close.

So the Wildcats improved to 21-0, breathed a huge sigh of relief, and rode off into the Provo night with a sense of revenge, having lost to the Cougars in Tucson last year by a point when Richie Saunders drew a foul with a few seconds remaining and canned a pair of free throws.

“We just made one more play than they did,” said Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, while acknowledging that a call went the visitors way in the final seconds for the second straight BYU-Arizona matchup.

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Saunders was not available to hurt the Wildcats late again, because he picked up his fifth foul with :50 seconds remaining and watched everything unfold from the bench.

“It sucked,” he said, when asked what that was like.

Wright had made a 3-pointer with 56 seconds remaining to cut Arizona’s lead to 82-75 before Saunders fouled Tobe Awaka, who made one of two free throws. A flagrant 1 foul on Burries, who finished with a game-high 29 points, gave BYU life with 35 seconds remaining and the Cougars scored four points on one possession to get back in it.

Keba Keita scored BYU’s final four points, the last two coming with 16 seconds left to cut the deficit to 84-83. BYU then forced a turnover by getting a held ball, setting up the final reasonable chance.

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BYU finished making more field goals than Arizona, 29-28, but the visitors were 26 of 32 from the free-throw line and BYU was 12 of 19.

“They were plus-14 on the free-throw line,” Young said. “I am not going to go at the officials every night. It can go either way. I thought there was some marginal contact. There was just not enough execution on our part.”

So BYU fell to 1-10 all-time against teams ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, and for the first 38 minutes it appeared that the home team was totally outclassed in its own building. But the Cougars (5-2, 17-3) will always have the final few minutes, minutes that showed just maybe they can play with the nation’s best. If Kennard Davis can produce and take some pressure off Dybantsa, Saunders and Wright, they probably can.

In fact, Young mentioned that if he knew Dybantsa (6 of 24) and Wright (3 of 16) would combine to go 9 of 40, he wouldn’t have thought the Cougars would have had a chance. Lesser teams would have folded against a team that shot 53% from the field and 81% from the free-throw line, and scored 18 points on fast breaks.

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“We’re right there with every team in the country,” Young said. “I thought that before the game. … You know, we didn’t play good (and were still right there).”

At this juncture last year, BYU was 13-6 overall and 4-4 in league play, and was able to improve down the stretch and make it to the Sweet 16. Is this team as good as that team? It certainly isn’t as deep, although there were positive signs in that regard Monday as Davis caught fire in the second half, rediscovered his 3-point shooting stroke and finished with five triples and 17 points.

Davis’ shooting in the second half kept the Cougars from getting blown completely off the court.

Then seldom-used freshman Aleksej Kostic hit a pair of 3-pointers, and showed he just might be the sniper the Cougars need from their bench the final month of the season.

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“I wish that (the Big 3) would have played better,” Young said. “We would have won the game comfortably. So it is all about improvement, man, that’s the bottom line. You’ve got to learn from your mistakes.”

There were plenty of those in the first half, when this game was lost, for the most part.

BYU was in decent shape when Dybantsa hit two free throws to give the home team a 26-24 lead with 7:05 remaining in the first half. Then the wheels fell off, while the nation’s No. 1 team showed why — using its wheels and a little bit of cunning.

Burries hit a jumper to tie it, then Jaden Bradley stole Saunders’ inbounds pass for an easy layup bucket to give UofA a lead with 6:48 left, and the Wildcats never trailed again.

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Over the course of the next six-plus minutes, the Cougars made just two field goals — a jumper by Dybantsa and a 3-pointer by Mihailo Boskovic — while the Wildcats scored on seven of their last eight possessions of the first half to put their lead out to 13.

Trailing 44-31 at halftime, BYU went on a quick scoring spurt out of the break, with Wright hitting a jumper and Davis finally warming up and hitting a pair of 3s. Dybantsa had a wide open 3 during the run that would have brought the house down, but missed it.

The Cougars put together a few mini-runs to threaten to get the Arizona lead to single digits, but each time the Wildcats had an answer.

For instance, Davis hit his fourth 3-pointer with 5:16 remaining to trim Arizona’s lead to 73-62, but 21 seconds later Bradley canned a deep 3 to reverse the momentum.

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If there was a play that summed up the night, it was freshman Koa Peat making a desperation, heavily contested jumper from near the top of the key to beat the shot clock with 3:04 remaining to give Arizona a 78-65 lead.

With 15:38 remaining in the game, Bradley and Burries had matched BYU’s total output, with 41 combined points. Bradley finished with 26, and on this night Arizona’s stars were just better than BYU’s stars. It’s that simple.

Peat and Ivan Kharchenkov added 10 points apiece, and Awaka had nine. Burries was 13 of 14 from the free-throw line. All the numbers favored the Wildcats — until they almost didn’t.

Credit the Cougars for nearly duplicating that comeback win over Clemson when they erased a 22-point halftime deficit. They trailed No. 3 UConn by 20 before losing by two.

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But a Clemson-like comeback just wasn’t in the cards.

“In conference play, the margins are very small,” Young said. “You can’t make mistakes repeatedly. … We got ourselves in a big hole. … We did a great job in the second half of digging out of it. That’s a long-winded way of saying I feel good about our team stacking up with any team in the country.”

In what would have been a comeback for the ages — until it wasn’t.