BYU and North Carolina State will look to rebound from their first losses of the season when they square off Friday afternoon in the third-place game of the Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego.
In Thursday’s tournament opener, the Wolfpack (5-1) lost 71-61 to No. 13 Purdue in a rematch of their 2024 Final Four game. The Cougars (5-1) then scuffed up their unblemished season with a 96-85 overtime setback to No. 23 Ole Miss.
BYU had a late four-point lead and possessed the ball with time running out in regulation but couldn’t pull off the upset. Freshman Kanon Catchings scored 17 points, but the Cougars didn’t have an answer for the Rebels’ Jaylen Murray when it mattered most.
Murray scored nine of his career-high 28 points in overtime after hitting a tough game-tying bucket late in the second half.
Along with defensive issues, the Cougars struggled with the physicality of Ole Miss and committed 17 turnovers — well over their season average of 10.8 per game. The Rebels scored 23 points directly off of BYU miscues.
“We haven’t really been a turnover team this year,” BYU coach Kevin Young said in his postgame radio interview. “But the first time we faced a physical defens, we turned it over 17 times.”
The Wolfpack’s last two losses have come at the hands of the Boilermakers, including 63-50 in the NCAA Tournament semifinals last season.
On Thursday, North Carolina State, which was within one point at halftime, hurt itself with six turnovers and poor shooting in the first 12 minutes of the second half. Those issues helped Purdue seize control with a 55-42 lead.
“We’ve got to do a good job of making the right play,” North Carolina State coach Kevin Keatts said in an interview with The (Raleigh) News & Observer. “We turned it over a couple of times and didn’t find the right guy. But overall, I loved the way we competed. That’s a really good team, the No. 13 team in the country. So we can learn from this because we were right there in moments.”
–Field Level Media
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