SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco women's basketball team competed with one of the West Coast Conference's best on Monday, holding multiple first-half leads and even going up by as much as five in the third, but visiting BYU capitalized on turnovers and made big 3-pointers down the stretch to come from behind and beat the Dons, 67-59, in a WCC matchup at War Memorial at Sobrato Center.


 
HOW IT HAPPENED

• San Francisco (5-8, 1-1 WCC) shut down the Cougars (10-3, 2-0 WCC) in the first period. The Dons outscored them, 16-7, while holding them to just 21.1 percent shooting. USF was efficient in the first 10 minutes, assisting on six of its seven baskets and shooting 46.7 percent to jump out to a seven-point lead. It was a 10-2 run in the last half of the frame that turned a one-point deficit into a 16-7 lead.
   
• But the Cougars began to capitalize on USF mistakes in the second quarter. San Francisco turned the ball over eight times in the second, part of 12 first-half turnovers, and BYU turned that into 10 of their 18 second-quarter points. Eight of the Cougars' first 10 points in the quarter came off of USF turnovers, including an and-one play by Paisley Johnson that gave BYU its first lead since the first at 21-20. The teams traded the lead three more times before halftime, with USF taking a 28-27 advantage into the break.
   
• USF led by five on two occasions early in the second half thanks to a layup by Moa Lundqvist and a 3-pointer from Kia Vaalavirta – the Dons' first long ball of the game after going 0 for 6 in the first half. But BYU scored its most points of any quarter in the third (23). Seven straight points (five from Shalae Salmon) gave the Cougars a 37-35 lead. Vaalavirta answered with another 3-pointer to put the Dons back up by two at 40-38, but a 12-5 stretch by BYU that included back-to-back 3s from Brenna Chase and Shaylee Gonzales put them up for good at 50-45.
   
• BYU built its lead to as much as 10 in the fourth quarter thanks to another 3-pointer from Chase. USF whittled it down to six with under a minute to go, but time ran out on a comeback attempt. The Cougars missed three free throws in the final 30 seconds alone and nine on the day, but were able to stay ahead with key 3-point shooting in the second half (41.7 percent).

NOTABLE NUMBERS

• 9: Shannon Powell dished a game-high and career-best nine assists. Her previous best was seven last season at San Jose State 13 months ago. She flirted with a triple-double Monday, scoring 12 points with nine assists and also grabbing seven rebounds.
• 10: Lucija Kostic also had a complete performance, logging her third double-digit scoring game of the year with 10 points while adding eight rebounds, three assists and three blocks.
• 20: San Francisco committed 20 turnovers Saturday, the second time in the last three games doing so. The Dons are 2-3 this season when committing at least 20 turnovers.

COMING UP

• The Dons conclude a three-game home stand to open WCC play on Saturday when they host South Bay rival Santa Clara for an afternoon affair at 2 p.m. Fans can purchase tickets and find all live coverage links on USFDons.com.