Mar 1, 2026 By Justin Jackson 4 min read

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The play of WVU forward Brenen Lorient on Saturday was maybe the best example of why the plus-minus statistic in basketball is the most worthless figure in sports.

In what ended up being a moment to celebrate, and Lorient and his teammates did just that with a victory lap around the Hope Coliseum floor handing out hi-fives to the fans, the Mountaineers upended No. 19 BYU with a 79-71 victory.

In the middle of one of West Virginia’s biggest wins of the season was the 6-foot-9 Lorient, who may have come away with his best game of the season.

“B-Lo was really active,” WVU head coach Ross Hodge said.

It was the understatement of the game, as Lorient finished with 18 points, nine rebounds and three assists. Of his nine rebounds, seven of them came on the offensive end.

Yet, the box score at the end of the game listed Lorient’s efforts as a minus (-7). This was definitely not a minus-7 type of game Lorient had just played.

“No, not tonight,” Hodge said with a smile.

Lorient’s list of accomplishments in this one is long, but it starts with the defense he and teammate Chance Moore played on BYU superstar A.J. Dybantsa. The nation’s leading scorer was held to just four points in the first half – WVU (17-12, 8-8 Big 12) held a 40-26 lead at the break – and he attempted just four shots.

“He was solid,” Dybantsa said of Lorient. “He kept sending me to the double team, which was probably their defensive scheme. I saw a lot of bodies today, so credit to him.”

Dybantsa finished with 20, five points below his season average, but even as he began to get more aggressive in the second half, the future NBA lottery pick couldn’t get the Cougars (20-9, 8-8) over the hump.

“He has great length and is very skilled,” Moore said of Dybantsa. “He knows his spots very well, so we were just trying to get physical without fouling. We wanted to make it as tough on him as possible, just don’t give him any easy ones.”

Then came those rebounds. WVU knew BYU was going to make a run at it in the second half. Hodge spent part of his postgame press conference listing the times the Cougars had fallen behind, only to mount a comeback.

Lorient just kept grabbing WVU’s misses in the second half, keeping BYU’s offense away from the ball and giving his teammates another opportunity to score and run time off the clock.

Three of Lorient’s offensive rebounds in the second half directly led to six of WVU’s 15 second-chance points.

“The last two games, we got killed on the glass pretty bad,” Lorient said. “It was a big emphasis by the coaches to get more rebounds and more opportunities.”

Overall, WVU finished with a 39-29 rebounding advantage.

“That’s why we lost,” BYU head coach Kevin Young said. “They had 18 offensive rebounds. We’re usually pretty good. We’re actually one of the best teams in the conference at (offensive rebounding), but every time we had them on the ropes, it felt like they got another offensive rebound.”

BYU did make a run, cutting that 14-point deficit at halftime down to 72-69 with 1:55 remaining in the game. Lorient gave the Mountaineers a 74-69 cushion with his drive to the basket for a lay-up. He scored 14 of his 18 points in the second half.

“It’s tough, because I missed those early ones,” Lorient said. “Usually whenever I don’t get those easy ones to go in early, I just focus on doing the little things better. Rebounding, getting stops on defense, that’s usually my main focus at those times.”

Lorient capped off his night with one final defensive play against Dybantsa, blocking his 3-point attempt in the corner with 18 seconds remaining when WVU’s lead was 75-71.

“It was a crucial moment, because they had just scored,” Lorient said of the play. “I’d seen him slide out, so I knew they were going to try and get something at the 3-point line. I just contested it straight up, and I was able to block it.”

WVU ended a three-game losing skid with the win. Honor Huff led the Mountaineers with 19 points and freshman D.J. Thomas scored 11 of his 13 points in the first half. Moore and Jasper Floyd each added 11 for WVU, which is now in a three-way tie for eighth place in the Big 12, along with BYU and Cincinnati.

The top eight schools all receive at least a first-round bye in the Big 12 tournament and WVU now owns the tiebreaker against BYU and Cincinnati.