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BYU Basketball doesn’t get much love in preseason poll

By Shaun Gordon

LAS VEGAS, NV - MARCH 05: Yoeli Childs #23 of the Brigham Young Cougars talks with head coach Dave Rose as Childs comes out of the team's semifinal game of the West Coast Conference basketball tournament after scoring a career-high 33 points against the Saint Mary's Gaels at the Orleans Arena on March 5, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Cougars won 85-72. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - MARCH 05: Yoeli Childs #23 of the Brigham Young Cougars talks with head coach Dave Rose as Childs comes out of the team's semifinal game of the West Coast Conference basketball tournament after scoring a career-high 33 points against the Saint Mary's Gaels at the Orleans Arena on March 5, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Cougars won 85-72. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) /
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The Preseason WCC Coaches Poll is out, and BYU Basketball is picked to finish third, with Yoeli Childs the lone Cougar on the Preseason All-WCC Team.

Let’s play a game. Here’s two teams. Pick which one you think would be in position to have a better year:

  • Team A – Won 24 games last year, returns all but one key contributor from the previous year, brings back an All-WCC performer who missed all of last year, three incoming 4-Star freshmen.
  • Team B – Won 30 games last year, lost five of their top seven contributors from last season, one incoming 4-Star freshman.

If you picked Team A, you’re picking BYU to finish second in the West Coast Conference this season (Gonzaga is by far the favorite to win the league).

If you picked Team B, you’re one of the WCC coaches who picked St. Mary’s to take second in the conference.

The WCC Preseason Coaches Poll was released on Thursday, and BYU Basketball is picked to finish third in the league for a fourth straight year.

Gonzaga led the pack with 81 total votes and nine out of the ten first place votes. St. Mary’s followed with 68 points, one point ahead of BYU’s 67. The Cougars got the other first place vote, though, instead of the Gaels.

The next closest to the conference’s three titans was San Francisco, who received 57 votes.

In the Preseason All-WCC Team that was announced along with the poll, Yoeli Childs is the only Cougar out of ten players on the team.

It’s no surprise that Childs is the list. He’ll be a WCC Player of the Year candidate after averaging 17.8 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks per game as a sophomore last year.

No team outside of Gonzaga have more that one player on the preseason team, but the Bulldogs have four.

BYU will have a little extra motivation going into the season after the release of this poll. The third place vote can certainly be seen as a slight when you look at who returns for the Cougars and who the Gaels lost.

Plus, players like TJ Haws and Nick Emery could have easily been included on the All-WCC list but weren’t.

Now the Cougars have to turn the extra motivation into wins on the court, since the final standings matter much more than the preseason polls.

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