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BYU rides the struggle bus early in 83-75 loss to Utah

BYU overcame a 24-point deficit with a run of its own early in the second half. It wasn't enough as the Cougars still fell short of the Utes in a rough and tumble duel.

By Kaleb Carter
Gene Sweeney Jr./Getty Images

Salt Lake City probably expected one heck of a duel Wednesday night, and that's not what they got. Instead, they received a cougar slaughter. Well, for most of the matchup anyway. Utah put down a BYU run just as things were getting interesting, and emerged with a convincing 83-75 win.

BYU shot out of the gates in the second half like a mother after her abducted young (startling, I know). After falling behind 51-28 at the half, the Cougars went on a 17-6 run to start the half. Kyle Davis led the way in that stretch with three buckets (and 7 points). The Cougars pulled all the way back to 61-54 via lots of good ball fro Davis and crew before foul trouble created other problems. The Utes created space for themselves from that point on, and that was that.

Jacob Poeltl was business as usual, showing off his arsenal around the bucket with 26 and 13 rebounds, showing why he is one of the top candidates for for the Naismith Award watch list.

Kyle Collinsworth put up 12 points in the first half to lead the to that point listless Cougars, but he only scored once in the second half (to finish with 15) and struggled with foul trouble. Freshman stud Nick Emery had his own issues while also shooting poorly from the field, 3 of 15 to be exact. He seemed to let it get to him, and was kicked out for a flagrant 2 foul on a punch quite late in the game.

Chase Fischer decided to put up some scores before the night ended, maybe just for the sake of the folks in Vegas. Fischer finished with 26 and scored 14 of BYU's last 17 points to end the night.

So for the sake of kicks from SB Nation's BYU blog, let's see how the progression of the night went in tweet form:

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