BYU Basketball: Cougars favored to finish 2nd in WCC?

LAS VEGAS, NV – MARCH 03: TJ Haws #30 of the Brigham Young Cougars drives to the basket against Isaiah Wright #22 of the San Diego Toreros during a quarterfinal game of the West Coast Conference basketball tournament at the Orleans Arena on March 3, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Cougars won 85-79. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) /

On January 9th, BYU was 9-8 and was appearing to be projected to finish in the middle of WCC standings, but one month later the Cougars are by themselves in second place.

When the WCC non conference schedule finished at the end of December this is what the standings looked like:

Gonzaga 13-2

San Fransisco 12-2

Loyola Marymount 12-2

San Diego 11-4

Pacific 10-6

Saint Mary’s 9-6

Santa Clara 8-6

BYU 8-7

Pepperdine 7-7

Portland 7-8

Part of the good records can go to the fact that the WCC is playing extremely well this year at home. BYU was sitting in seventh place in the WCC and coming off of a three game losing streak. The top four teams in the conference seemed head and shoulders above BYU and Saint Mary’s. After a loss against the Gaels, the Cougars were 9-8 and again with Saint Mary’s not appearing to be top-tier, Cougar fans felt that this season was over.

Fast forward a month.

Since losing to Saint Mary’s on January 5th, the Cougars have gone on a 6-2 run and find themselves 7-3 in the WCC with six games left in the regular season, and a tie-breaker over Saint Mary’s. If BYU goes 5-1 in the last six games, they will finish second place regardless of what any other team does. If they go 4-2 or even 3-3, the worst that they will likely finish is third with Saint Mary’s still having to play Gonzaga twice.

A month ago things seemed lost for BYU basketball, now they sit in second place. Now the question is, where will they be next month?

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