Lyday comes through for BYU

Steve Addy

Friday, March 9, 2001 | 10:59 a.m.

BYU's Terrell Lyday felt like the Energizer Bunny on Thursday against Air Force.

But even the toy bunny needs someone to wind him up.

In the opening game of the Mountain West tournament, the wind-up came courtesy of a poor first half by BYU. Lyday and the Cougars were lulled to sleep by Air Force's methodical style and trailed by nine in the final minute of the half.

But after being challenged by coach Steve Cleveland, Lyday and BYU's other seniors took control with a 29-7 run in the second half and went on to pound the seventh-seeded Falcons 69-54.

Lyday, who usually plays well at the Thomas & Mack Center, put on a scoring show reminiscent of Trevor Diggs' 49-point game last week against Wyoming. Though Lyday scored half as many points, finishing with 25, the 6-foot-3 senior guard had 18 in the second half and was virtually unstoppable.

In a span of 5:39, Lyday scored 11 straight Cougars points and 14 out of 16. He nailed four 3-pointers in four attempts and a crowd-wowing dunk after eluding Jarvis Croff in a halfcourt set.

Lyday also had two assists in the BYU spurt.

For the game, Lyday shot 6-of-12, including 5-of-7 3-pointers. In the first half, though he led BYU with seven points, he was only 2-of-5 and 1-of-3.

"We were playing at Air Force's pace," Lyday said. "We weren't playing well, and I felt like I was letting the team down. Someone had to be the Energizer Bunny."

After some not-so-gentle nudging by Cleveland.

"We just challenged the seniors," the coach said. "Terrell kind of kick-started us, hit some big shots."

Air Force hardly bothered to get a hand in Lyday's face in the second half.

"We had no answer to him," Falcons coach Joe Scott said. "We guarded him well for the first 20 minutes. But there are certain things in the scouting report (about Lyday) and we didn't adhere to them in the second half."

Lyday's explosion was no surprise, and not merely because he was a first-team all-Mountain West selection. In his two seasons at BYU, he has usually played well on UNLV's court.

Against the Rebels in the regular season last year, he had 30 points, shot 11-of-17 and grabbed 11 rebounds at the Mack. In last year's MWC tournament, he scored a game-high 23 against New Mexico, 16 against Utah and 18 against UNLV, making the all-tournament team.

Though he was held to 14 points on 3-of-12 shooting in BYU's loss at UNLV this year, his showing Thursday gave him a 21.0 average in six games at the Mack.

"I don't know what it is about this arena," Lyday said. "I think it's a great background."

That background didn't matter much on Lyday's most energizing play.

Though he was bombing away from the 3-point line, his best momentum-changer was his dunk after getting around Croff on the right side. No weak-side help came in for Air Force and Lyday threw down the dunk, putting BYU ahead 40-39 with 12:46 left. The Cougars soon took the lead for good and pushed it to 15.