This is how a player leads.
With her team muddling through an ugly first quarter of basketball, when they didn't score their third point until nearly 10 minutes had gone by, Mandi Moore decided it was time to start shooting.
"I thought we were awful nervous, and we questioned our confidence a little bit," Flanagan said of the game's slow start.
The team wasn't as confident as it should have been, Flanagan said.
"That's just something that a team learns," he said. You win a tough game, and you're a little more confident the next time. And this team learned. And they have some good leaders."
Leaders like Moore. Apparently, she was just waiting for the most opportune time to let the ball fly.
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Down 13-21 with five minutes left in the first half, Moore hit a three-pointer off a little handoff from Jana Francis for her first points of the game.
"We need Mandi to shoot the ball," Flanagan said. "She knows she can shoot whenever she wants, but she always wants to give it up."
Not this time.
"I felt like we weren't in the flow of the game," Moore said. "We were taken aback by how they jumped out at us."
Two plays later, she hit on another Francis handoff, this time from about 15 feet. With over four minutes left, she'd brought them to within two points of Brigham Young.
"We look to the players who are leaders," Lindsey Arndt said after the game. "Mandi does a great job of that, and she always has. When we're kind of freaking out and don't really know what to do, she just steps up."
Still, with minutes to go in the first half, BYU increased their lead to 27-22.
Moore pulled up and hit another jumper on the Lobos' next trip down the court, cutting the lead to five.
"I know if I can get something going, I can help the team play better," Moore said. "And they did."
Her last bucket in the first half, and second-to-last for the entire game, came just before the buzzer sounded halftime. She drove through the BYU defense and scooped in a simple looking layup that cut the once double-digit score to just three.
The Lobos resembled nothing like the team that started the contest so lethargically.
"She just always knows what to do when we need her," Arndt said. "She's just a great leader."
The game would prove relatively easy for the Lobos in the second half. Five minutes in, they went on an 8-0 run to go up 41-37.
Just when they seemed to be locked to the momentum, BYU's Danielle Cheesman hit a three to get the Cougars right back in contention.
The Lobos tried to answer quickly but missed a jumper. Just as a BYU defender grabbed the rebound, Moore sneaked her hands around the ball and forced a jump call. The Lobos got the ball, and Katie Montgomery hit a three-pointer to make the score 44-37 with eight minutes left. It was never close again.
Moore finished the game with 11 points, eight rebounds and four assists. She played all 40 minutes.
The Lobos' other senior starter supplied some leadership of her own. Arndt led all players with 10 rebounds, and also tied freshman Dionne Marsh for the team lead in points, with 12.
As the game wound down, with BYU applying a heavy press and looking to steal or force bad shots, Arndt took it inside for two baseline leaners, then outside for a long two to give the Lobos a 13-point lead.
Her points weren't the last scored in the game, however. Moore was fouled with just four seconds left and calmly nailed both freethrows.
A shaky start was capped with a solid conference win, thanks to the steady senior leadership of Arndt and, in particular, Moore.
