The Irish escaped the Barclays Center with a win, salvaging a trip that may have cost them their status in the top-25.
No. 20 Notre Dame turned around after an upset overtime loss to St. Joe’s on Friday night to beat BYU 78-68 as the Cougars and Fighting Irish faced off in the consolation game of the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament at the Barclays Center on Saturday Night.
“I am very proud of our team because we invested a lot of energy [Friday night],” Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey said. “I’m impressed with our maturity because we were in a battle.”
The Irish’s front line, led by senior forward Jack Cooley, overwhelmed the Cougars on both ends of the floor. Cooley, the Irish’s leading scorer, finished with 19 points and 13 rebounds for his second-straight double-double in the tournament.
“Jack is huge,” Irish guard Jerian Grant said. “Whenever we need a bucket or need to get the offense going, we throw it in to him and he seems to be able to make a play somehow.”
Cooley received help from Grant and Eric Atkins, who both also scored in double figures for the Irish for the second consecutive game.
Atkins’ 16 points topped his season-high of 12, which he notched in the 79-70 loss to St. Joe’s.
One night after scoring a game-high 23 points, sophomore guard Tyler Haws led all scorers again, scoring 21 points on 8-of-20 shooting. Haws was 5-for-6 from the free throw line and added eight rebounds.
BYU’s second-leading scorer, senior forward Brandon Davies played just four minutes in the first half and sat the majority of the second half after getting into foul trouble. Davies finished with 12 points despite limited action.
“I will tell you early in the year when you coach for basically 80 minutes, two games and you are in foul situations…it makes it difficult,” BYU head coach Dave Rose said. “We have to be smarter in our ability to not foul and stay out on the floor.”
In addition to Haws and Davies, BYU’s Brock Zylstra finished with 10 points for the second straight game.
The scales tipped heavily in favor of the Irish when it came to shooting. Notre Dame shot over 52 percent from the field. After a first half that saw the Irish shoot just 1-of-7 from beyond the arc, Notre Dame hit five of its six three pointers in the second half.
BYU shot just under 38 percent from the field and made only three shots from 3pt range in the game.
“I think that in crucial possessions that we need to execute better,” Rose said. “There are a lot of things we need to do. We need better point guard play, we need better post play and we need better wing play.”
The loss to Notre Dame was BYU’s second double-digit loss in a row after it dropped the semi-final contest to Florida State 88-70 a night earlier.
asulla-heffinger@nypost.com