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BYU Women’s Basketball is quietly off to a strong start in 2018-19

By Shaun Gordon

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 04: A basketball flies through the hoop during the round eight NBL match between Melbourne United and the Illawarra Hawks at Hisense Arena on December 4, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 04: A basketball flies through the hoop during the round eight NBL match between Melbourne United and the Illawarra Hawks at Hisense Arena on December 4, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images) /
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While they don’t get much attention, BYU Women’s Basketball is quietly having a strong start to their season, and they’re doing it in a way that’s built to last.

BYU Women’s Basketball lives in a lot of shadows.

They’re overshadowed by men’s basketball, the school’s second-most high-profile sport.

Plus, they’re overshadowed by other Cougar women’s sports that have been consistently nationally relevant, such as soccer and volleyball.

And all three of those sports overlap with the women’s basketball schedule, putting them on the attention back-burner.

So it’s time to give them some love.

Strong Start

The Cougars are off to a solid start this season, winning 7 of their first 10 games. That’s included some big wins over TCU and Utah State, who both have Top 101 RPIs. In fact, they handed TCU their only loss of the season so far.

And two of their three losses have come against quality opponents in No. 14 Cal and Utah. Their loss at Southern Utah has been their only bad one.

As a result, BYU is sitting in good shape with their RPI. They’re currently No. 73, and they’ll have plenty of opportunities to move up.

That’ll start on Friday, when the Cougars host Northern Colorado, who sits at No. 63 in the RPI rankings.

Then they’ll enter West Coast Conference play, and the WCC is surprisingly strong this year. Six teams have Top 100 RPIs, and eight are in the Top 150:

  • Gonzaga – No. 18
  • Saint Mary’s – No. 44
  • Portland – No. 58
  • BYU – No. 73
  • Pacific – No. 79
  • Loyola Marymount – No. 91
  • Pepperdine – No. 139
  • Santa Clara – No. 142

It means that the Cougars are going to play a lot of tough games the rest of the way, but it also means that if they win most of them they’ll have a very solid NCAA Tournament resume in March.

And unlike the men’s team, the women have proven that they can beat good teams.

All About Balance

The Cougars are winning as a team. Three players average at least 13 points, led by Shaylee Gonzales with 16.2 per game.

In fact, on Monday Gonzales earned BYU’s first WCC Player of the Week award of the season after a huge performance in Saturday’s win over Colorado State. She finished with 29 points, nine rebounds, and four assists.

WCC Defensive Player of the Year Sara Hamson is still working her way back into full playing time after knee surgery. She’s played 12.9 minutes per game so far, but that will increase.

Even while she’s not on the floor, BYU has been solid defensively. They’re allowing a little too much from beyond the arc (36% Opp. 3PT), but they’re stingy in the paint. Opponents are shooting just 39.9% on their two-point opportunities, which is almost unheard of.

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And fortunately for the Cougars, defense travels. They’ve held every road opponent but one to less than 70 points, and they’ve held three of those under 60 points.

As long as their solid defense continues they’ll always be in games. Now they just need to take a leap offensively to move from good to great.

Women’s volleyball is over.

So is women’s soccer.

Men’s basketball hasn’t figured out how to win big games.

At the risk of jinxing things, maybe it’s time to jump on the women’s basketball bandwagon.

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