As BYU basketball fans, it’s easy for us to be so caught up in the here-and-now of the Cougars being a competitive Big 12 squad that we forget where this program was just two seasons ago.
I mean, can anybody logically explain how BYU hoops went 16-15 in their last two seasons of WCC conference play, but is now somehow 18-14 in their first two Big 12 seasons?
It’s shocking, right?
Honestly, when BYU limped its way out of the WCC just two years ago after with essentially a .500 record over its last two seasons of conference play, what was the realistic view of how they would fare in their first 32 games in the meat grinder that is the Big 12?
Maybe 9-23? Perhaps 12-20 for those who were really optimistic?
Instead, the Cougars went 10-8 in conference play in their inaugural Big 12 season last year and are following that up with an 8-6 league record this year.
After stumbling to a 16-15 conference record exiting the lowly West Coast Conference, BYU is now 18-14 in Big 12 conference play over the last two seasons.
This reality is both amazing and something BYU fans shouldn’t take for granted.
Given Brigham Young’s current Big 12 success, it’s almost hard to remember now just how bleak the program's future looked after leaving the West Coast Conference after the 2022-23 season. To help us keep things in perspective, let’s take a look back on where the Cougars were before heading into the Big 12 last season.
Flaming out of the WCC
BYU joined what Cougar fans viewed as the “lowly” West Coast Conference in the 2011-12 season. Under head coach Dave Rose, BYU went 12-4 in conference play in their first WCC season and double-digit conference wins became the norm.
In Brigham Young’s first 10 seasons in the WCC the team went, on average, about 12-5 in conference play, winning 118 of 167 conference games (.707).
But then in 2021-22, Mark Pope’s team hit a pothole. The Cougars went an uninspiring 9-6 in conference play that year, finishing fifth in the WCC behind the likes of Santa Clara and San Francisco.
BYU fans who thought that season was an outlier then hit the panic button in 2022-23 when the Cougars went an embarrassing 7-9 in league play, placing them tied for fifth in the conference with Pacific and San Francisco and squarely behind schools like Santa Clara and Loyola Marymount.
Instead of rising to the top of the WCC and dethroning perennial conference powerhouses Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, BYU left the league bruised and humbled, just barely breaking even in league play at 16-15 over its final two seasons.
BYU was struggling against the likes of Santa Clara, San Francisco, Pacific, and Loyola Marymount when they left the WCC. Those types of conference foes were going to be replaced by Houston, Baylor, Iowa State, and Kansas as the Cougars entered the Big 12.
Uh-oh.
From middling WCC team to competitive Big 12 upstart
After just frustratingly treading water in conference play in their final two WCC seasons, BYU was supposed to get destroyed in the Big 12. However, the Cougars are shockingly 18-14 in Big 12 play over the last two years, and that includes overcoming the potentially derailing event of changing coaches this year.
How did this dramatic and wholly unexpected transformation occur?
First, in BYU’s final year in the WCC when the team went 7-9 in conference play, the roster was pretty young. Of the nine players who averaged at least 14 minutes per game, five were underclassmen including three sophomores (Fousseyni Traore, Jaxson Robinson, and Atiki Ally Atiki) and two freshmen (Dallin Hall and Richie Saunders). Junior transfer Noah Waterman struggled to find his footing in his new home in Provo while junior Trevin Knell was a reserve averaging 6.4 points per game.
As BYU entered the Big 12 last year, the core of Hall, Saunders, Traore, Knell, and Jackson were more seasoned given their WCC experience and Waterman found his groove. The struggles a young Cougars team endured in their final season in the WCC paved the way for a more experienced, battle-tested team that went a solid 10-8 in the Big 12 last year.
This year Saunders, Hall, Traore, and Knell are now the veteran core of what is once again a competitive Big 12 squad. Richie Saunders, in particular, has blossomed into an All-Big 12 candidate with a potential future in the NBA. The Cougars are 8-6 in league play this season and squarely in the hunt for their second straight NCAA Tournament invite thanks in large part to the development and consistency of these four players.
The transfer portal has both given and taken away from the Cougars, too.
Waterman and Aly Khalifa both came and went. Jaxson Robinson, the Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year last season, followed Mark Pope to Kentucky as did heralded recruit Collin Chandler. Veteran transfers-in Keba Keita, Mawot Mag, and a healthy Dawson Baker have helped stabilize the team this year along with freshman phenom Egor Demin. The talent coming into the program has been slightly better than the talent leaving over the last two years, but not to the point where "talent" alone can explain BYU's unexpected success in the Big 12.
BYU has also raised it's game in the Big 12.
BYU’s history of playing to the level of its competition
Another explanation to BYU’s sudden, unexpected success in the Big 12 is the Cougars earned a reputation of sometimes playing down to the level of inferior opponents.
It’s a frustrating trait that’s impossible to prove beyond the eye test, but I’m pretty sure I saw it happening as BYU closed out its time in the WCC. The same BYU squad that could compete with Gonzaga or Saint Mary’s on any given night could then turn around and lose to Santa Clara, Pacific, and San Francisco. Playing on the road against no-name schools in what looked and felt like high school gyms didn’t always bring out the best in the Cougars.
At times in the WCC they looked, well, bored.
BYU team’s aren’t widely known for going for the jugular, and that attribute cost them on more than one occasion during their time in the WCC.
Conversely, the Cougars have a history of raising their game against supposedly superior opponents. Take, for instance, the 81-49 shellacking of No. 12 Oregon in 2021 or last year’s win at No. 7 Kansas. Throughout BYU’s final two seasons in the West Coast Conference the team could at times be perplexing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine on the hardwood by playing down to the level of small-time schools then turning it on for big-time matchups. The team just wasn’t consistent night-in and night-out.
BYU doesn’t have that luxury anymore. Every night in the Big 12 is a big-time game and the Cougars have responded over the last two seasons by treating every conference game accordingly. They've raised their game.
It seems like a long, long time ago that BYU was a wounded, struggling former WCC team with what appeared to be a bleak Big 12 future awaiting on the hardwood.
Over the last two seasons, however, they have miraculously transformed themselves from that discouraging state into a competitive member of one of the nation’s elite power conferences.
It has all happened so unexpectedly fast, and it has all been so unexpectedly wonderful.