PORTLAND, Ore. – BYU got hot early and pulled away from the Portland Pilots by a 97-78 margin Thursday night in West Coast Conference action at the Chiles Center. The Pilots honored Ray Barreno, Jarrel Marshall and Alec Wintering prior to tip-off as part of Senior Night.

The evening started out festive with the trio of seniors receiving a standing ovation from the crowd of 3,121 in making their final Chiles Center appearance. Wintering, who suffered a season-ending knee injury on Jan. 19 at San Francisco, concludes his career among the Pilot career leaders in numerous statistical categories.

Junior forward Gabe Taylor led the Pilots (10-20, 2-15 WCC) with 18 points, while sophomore Xavier Hallinan tallied a career-high 17 points. Since moving into the starting lineup, Hallinan is averaging 12.3 points over the last four games and reached double figures three times. D'Marques Tyson added 11 off the bench.

Barreno opened the game with a jumper in the lane to give the Pilots an early lead, but BYU erupted behind 22 first half points from sophomore Elijah Bryant. The Elon transfer's previous season high for a game was 17 and he finished with 39 on Thursday, the most by any player in the WCC this year.

The Cougars (20-10, 11-6) raced out to a 51-34 halftime lead by drilling seven three-pointers and converting 14-of-16 free throws in the first half.

The margin would grow to as much as 27 midway through the second half as the Cougars finished the game shooting 50 percent from the field and the Pilots shot 43 percent. BYU gained a 45-23 rebounding margin and 17-6 edge in second chance points.

The Pilots forced 16 turnovers while committing just 13, but BYU gained a 17-15 edge in points off of turnovers.

Eric Mika finished with 19 points and eight rebounds for BYU, while Nick Emery added 16.

Portland will conclude the regular season with a road game at San Diego on Saturday at 6 p.m. The game will be televised live on ROOT Sports Northwest, while radio coverage begins at 5:30 p.m. on 910 ESPN-Portland.