Season Begins with Annual Blue-White Scrimmage

PROVO,Utah (Nov. 1,2002)--The BYU men's basketball team tipped-off its season Friday night at the Marriott Center with the annual blue-white game. The white team withstood a late surge and held off the blue team 45-43 in the 25-minute inner-squad scrimmage.

The white team, led by Terry Nashif's 11 points and John Allen's nine, jumped out to an early 10-2 lead--shocking the more experienced blue team. Nashif connected on three treys and Allen showed good moves in the paint earning some easy scores.

Junior Mark Bigelow led the blue squad with 13 points including three three-pointers. Junior College transfer Kevin Woodberry added nine points on three bombs from behind the arc.

Along with Bigelow and Woodberry, the blue team featured Travis Hansen who finished with eight points and brought the crowd to its feet with a steal and hanging jam at the other end.

The big men for the blue team were quiet. Jared Jensen contributed four points and JC transfer Rafael Araujo's added six. Araujo showed his strength inside by grabbing 10 rebounds--a game high.

Other members of the white team were JC transfer Luiz Lemes-6 points, freshman Austin Ainge- eight points, sophomore Marc Roberts- five points, junior Dan Howard- four points and freshman Jermaine Odjegba- two points.

The blue team had two shots to tie inside the final 20 seconds but could not connect on either and the white team prevailed.

In the three-point contest, the veteran team of Hansen, Bigelow and Bower defeated the newcomers Woodberry, Lemes and Ainge, by a score of 20-18.

The fans were treated to a slam-dunk contest after the game. Woodberry, Odjegba and Hansen excited the crowd with high-flying' dunks. Woodberry was the crowd favorite and showed his hops taking a lob from Lemes and throwing down a windmill jam.