After finishing up a hectic nonconference schedule that included two separate trips to New York state, Brigham Young is ready for Mountain West play.
Stephen Rogers scored a career-high 16 points in only 17 minutes to lead BYU to a 93-57 victory over Fresno Pacific on Saturday night.
''I was a little nervous to see how we'd come out and play tonight after all the travel and holidays,'' BYU coach Dave Rose said. ''But I think we did a lot of things really well.''
BYU (14-1) opens league play at UNLV on Wednesday night.
Rogers helped the BYU reserves outscore their Sunbirds counterparts 46-10. Noah Hartsock scored 14 points with Jackson Emery and Chris Collinsworth scoring 12 and 11 points respectively off the bench. All-American Jimmer Fredette scored 13 for BYU and also added five assists.
Fredette's three 3-pointers on the night gave him 214 for his career, moving him past Mark Bigelow into second place all-time at BYU trailing only Jonathan Tavernari.
''It was good to see players shooting well tonight,'' Rose said. ''We need to share the ball, and I also thought we did that really well tonight. I really believe that we have a lot of confidence in the bench players. Consistency from the bench is key.''
Charles Abouo's rebound dunk just before the first-half buzzer capped a BYU's 22-4 run that included the last 13 points of the half.
The run pushed the Cougars' lead to 44-24, which was their widest margin in the half.
Chris Collinsworth had five points and his brother Kyle added four during the run with Hartsock adding another five.
Jerante Morgan finished with 25 points for Fresno Pacific (10-4).
BYU's big run came on the heels of a 7-0 run by the Sunbirds that pulled them within 22-20 with 6:50 remaining.
Morgan capped the run with his 10th and final point of the first half on 5-of-5 shooting from the field.
BYU outrebounded Fresno Pacific 23-10 in the first half and 48-24 for the game.
There weren't too many rebounds to be had for the Sunbirds with BYU shooting 50 percent to Fresno Pacific's 39 percent.
''BYU is a great team,'' Fresno Pacific coach Chris Wright said. ''As well as they shoot the ball as a team we knew it was going to be a tough matchup. They beat us up on the glass a little bit, got some easy buckets in transition and it just kind of spiraled out of control from there.''
The Sunbirds were only 1 for 12 from behind the 3-point arc in the first half and 4 for 23 for the game.
Emery's steal with 12:50 remaining in the game leaves him three shy of BYU's all-time record held by Danny Ainge.
The Cougars led by as many as 39 points when Rogers sank two free throws with 6:03 remaining in the game.
''This is the third Division 1 team we've played,'' Wright said. ''We played Fresno State, Santa Barbara and now BYU, and they (BYU) are obviously the deepest and most talented. I would be shocked if they didn't make a deep run in the NCAA tournament.''
