BYU basketball: Cougars on pace for NCAA bid after non-conference play
By Shaun Gordon
Non-conference play is finished for BYU basketball. At 11-2, the Cougars are right on track toward earning an at-large NCAA Tournament berth.
The college basketball season isn’t quite halfway over, but this week marks a major milestone for BYU basketball.
Non-conference play is over, and it’s time for WCC basketball to start.
After 13 out-of-conference games, the Cougars sit at 11-2, their best start since 2010-11, Jimmer’s senior season.
When the season began, I took a look at what BYU needs to do at minimum to make the NCAA tournament.
For the Cougars to be on track for an NCAA at-large berth, they needed to do two things:
- Pick up at least two quality wins (Princeton, UT Arlington, Alabama, Utah)
- Avoid any bad losses.
BYU split their four key games. They took down Princeton and Utah, but fell to UT Arlington and Alabama.
The Princeton win may not mean as much as expected, since the they’ve struggled early this season. However, their recent upset over USC may signal a turning point for the Tigers.
The Utah win is a good win, but not a marquee victory that the Cougars need to headline their tournament resume. A win over Alabama would have been one of those marquee vicories.
Most importantly, BYU beat the teams they needed to. They avoided any of the losses that look bad come tournament time.
Work Still To Do
The Cougars still have a lot to do before making NCAA Tournament plans.
They still don’t have that marquee win they need. They’ve got four more shots, with the first coming on Saturday against St. Mary’s.
On the bright side, both Gonzaga and St. Mary’s have shown vulnerability, meaning a win or two over either of them is certainly doable.
On the flip side, with neither team playing at the level of previous years, it may take two wins rather than one to impress the tournament committee.
And the Cougars have to keep avoiding bad losses. So far, they’ve proven able to do just that, but their WCC history has been littered with at least one or two bad conference losses each year.
BYU may be able to weather one loss to either San Francisco or San Diego, both of whom have Top-150 RPI’s right now.
But the bottom half of the WCC is bad, really bad. Those losses would quickly undo all the good that BYU has done to their resume up to this point.
The Cougars’ train is headed in the right direction, now it just needs to keep on rolling.