AZUSA, Calif. -- The most dangerous place in the Pacific West Conference is the top of the standings, as No. 23-ranked Azusa Pacific knocked No. 13-ranked BYU-Hawaii from first place with an 88-74 win over the Seasiders Thursday night at the Felix Event Center.
The win avenged a 14-point defeat to BYU-Hawaii that knocked the Cougars out of the PacWest lead two weeks earlier in Hawai?i, and it pulled all four of the conference's top four teams all within a half-game of each other with Azusa Pacific and Dixie State tied for the lead with California Baptist and BYU-Hawaii a half-game back.
"We're at the top of the standings in a logjam, and nobody knows who's going to come out of this thing on top," Azusa Pacific head coach Justin Leslie said. "Right now that's the least of our concerns, because our singular focus is our next game. We have a ton of better basketball in front of us if we can keep improving, and I keep challenging the team to keep their foot on the gas every day. I hope they don't just want to get through practice, but that they want to learn something new every day, whether it's a new trick or a new wrinkle. We've got better basketball in front of us, and we just need to keep learning and pushing."
Junior guard Bruce English gave the Cougars the first-half spark they needed off the bench, hitting a pair of crucial three-pointers in the first half before delivering three long-range daggers after halftime in a career-high 17-point performance. English tied the game at 28-28 with 7:06 left in the first half with his first three, and his second gave Azusa Pacific the lead for good by sparking an 18-6 run over the final five minutes of the opening half that gave the Cougars a 50-40 halftime edge.
"This was a game we had to win, because they embarrassed in Hawaii, to say the least," English said. "All week we knew that if there was a game that needed to be won, it was this one tonight. I really struggled in our last game, but my teammates kept picking me up and encouraging me; being able to play this way for my teammates was really satisfying."
He added three more in the second half, keeping Azusa Pacific's lead in double digits for all of the final 20 minutes after the Cougars scored the first seven points of the second half and expanded the lead as wide as 20 points with 14:11 remaining in the game.
"This team has a special ability to go achieve a goal when we're all committed to it, and that's what we did tonight," English said. "We knew we couldn't let up, because BYU-Hawaii is a team that's capable of scoring a lot of points very quickly, but we knew if we played with the same defensive intensity we had in the first half, there wouldn't be any way they could stop us."
Senior guard Troy Leaf added a game-high 25 points along with five assists, giving him 10 straight games with at least 20 points. Senior point guard Robert Sandoval was an assist shy of a double-double, finishing with 12 points and nine assists, and he held BYU-Hawaii's leading scorer Pablo Coro to just 11 points on just six shot attempts in a superb defensive effort.
"Robert dominated the flow of the game, and for him to control the tempo and then have the toughness to go on the other and guard really spoke to how hard he competed," Leslie said. "Defensively, he didn't let Coro shoot and did a great job against a great player. Troy had a completely different game assignment, and even though we always rely on him to carry a big offensive load, today he had to do a completely different job defensively by guarding the point guard."
Coro torched Azusa Pacific for 23 points on five three-pointers when the teams met two weeks ago in Laie, Hawai?i, but he went just one-for-four on three-pointers and three-for-six overall to finish with 11 points. Scott Friel led the Seasiders on Thursday, hitting seven-of-13 from the field to score a team-high 18 points.
"Their place is ridiculously hard to win as a visitor, but so is this place," Leslie said. "We run a little harder here, shots go in a little more often, and the ball bounces our way a little bit more. The crowd was fantastic, and in a game like this when both teams know what the other is running, you just have to go compete. You win in the details, and we knew we had to win every little battle for a spot on the floor, that extra half-second hold on a blockout, and getting on the floor to take a charge. Those were the plays we had to go out and get in order to win. At the end of the day, we won this game by competing consistently."
Led by English's career-high five three-pointers, Azusa Pacific hit 10-of-24 (42 percent) from beyond the arc, and the Cougars generated a 20-10 edge in points off turnovers. Sophomore Will Ward and freshman Petar Kutlesic were the Cougars' rebounding leaders, combining for 12 of the team's 33 rebounds in a productive performance off the bench.
With the victory, Azusa Pacific improves to 20-4 overall, 13-3 PacWest, while BYU-Hawaii drops to 18-3 overall, 12-3 PacWest after the opening game of a treacherous three-game road trip which also includes visits to California Baptist and Point Loma.
