DENVER — Richie Saunders scored 25 points, Keba Keita had 10 points and three blocked shots and No. 6 seed BYU held off No. 3 seed Wisconsin 91-89 in the second round of the East Region on Saturday night.
Trevin Knell added 14 points and Egor Demin added 11 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for BYU (26-9). The Cougars advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2011 and will face the winner of Sunday’s Alabama-Saint Mary’s matchup.
“Words can’t really describe it,” Saunders said. “I’ve loved playing with this group. We’ve been together, with some great additions, but there was a lot of us my freshman year taking some bad losses, and it’s crazy just to think about how we’ve stuck together as a team, and we just chose to keep moving forward, and to see where we are and the opportunities ahead is just amazing.”
John Tonje scored 37 points on 10-of-18 shooting from the field but missed a shot to send it into overtime with one second left. John Blackwell finished with 21 points, Max Klesmit had 12 and Steven Crowl contributed 10 for the Badgers (27-10).
“Put the ball in my best player’s hands,” said Wisconsin coach Greg Gard about the missed shot by Tonje on the last play. “We’re not in this position without John Tonje; we don’t have the year and win 27 games without J.T. We made the decision we were coming down, we had done it before, put the ball in your best player’s hands and let him go make a play.”
BYU led by 13 early in the second half, but the Badgers surged to cut the deficit to 52-48. The Cougars responded to lead 70-56 with 10:25 left.
Wisconsin rallied to get within 75-68, but Knell drained another 3-pointer, Keita split a pair of free throws and Klesmit answered from deep to make it 79-71 with 6:46 remaining.
Soon after, Keita converted a three-point play to restore the double-digit lead. The Badgers trimmed it to eight on Klesmit’s fourth 3-pointer with 4:27 left but Saunders muscled his way in for a layup, Keita blocked Blackwell’s layup and Demin’s 3-pointer made it 89-78.
Wisconsin made a last push, getting within 91-86 on Tonje’s 3-pointer with 1:16 left. The Cougars turned it over on the inbounds pass and Tonje was fouled on a layup and hit the free throw to make it 91-89 with a minute left.
“I’m really proud of this group,” said Gard. “The ending stinks, but the ride was a hell of a lot of fun.”
BYU couldn’t connect at the other end and the Badgers got the rebound with 13.5 seconds left with a chance to tie it but Tonje missed a fadeaway jumper.
“We felt like we couldn’t stop them at all in the second half,” said BYU coach Kevin Young, “and in that last timeout, man, we just looked each other in the eye and said all we’ve got to do is get one stop, that’s it.”
The Cougars raced to an early 12-5 lead and increased it to 30-16. Wisconsin got within eight late in the half but Knell’s corner 3-pointer in the final seconds gave BYU a 47-36 lead at intermission.
–Field Level Media