We are already 15 games into the 30-game season for the BYU Men’s Basketball team. The Cougs are 11-4 so far and are coming off a sound thrashing of the SDSU Aztecs in the Marriott Center on Saturday. It was the Cougars’ 6th straight win and the win was significant because SDSU (though struggling as of late) was the conference champion last year and was picked to win the Mountain West Conference championship this year.

BYU hit a bump in the road over the weekend though when starting point guard Rashaun Broadus was arrested on suspicion on DUI and was suspended from the team on Monday. Senior guard Austin Ainge (Danny’s son if you were wondering) will have to pick up the slack for Broadus who was the leading scorer in the win against the Aztecs.

I am not sure what to make of this BYU team yet. This is the team that was picked to finish dead last in conference last year but under first-year head coach Dave Rose pulled off a Cinderella story and racked up 20 wins en route to a 2nd place finish in conference. Expectations are significantly higher this season but performance has been spotty with the Cougs barely winning some games they should have rolled in and even dropping a couple of games (Boise St. and Lamar??) that they’d like to have back. Sophomore star Trent Plaisted has been inconsistent all year and the team has seemingly lacked leadership at times. The bright spots this year have been the play of senior big man Keena Young and sophomore wing man (and Jack Skellington look-a-like) Lee Cummard. Cummard was especially impressive in the big win on Saturday playing both smothering defense on SDSU’s best player and filling it up on the offensive end of the court.

As for the rest of the conference: There are some very solid teams in the league this year with Air Force in the top 20 and UNLV having an excellent year. CSU is looking tough at 11-4 and Wyoming and New Mexico are dangerous as well. If SDSU can pull their stuff together quickly they are talented enough to contend for the conference title still as well. Utah has been stinking it up this year but they also have the talent to upset anyone.

So Cougar fans, with 15 games left where do you see this team finishing? I’m going to be somewhat of an optimist and predict a 21 win regular season with the Cougs going 10-5 the rest of the way (with most or all of the losses on the road). I’ll also predict an invite to the Big Dance this year. If things went really well I could see the Cougs going 11-4 in the second half of the season as well but I’m afraid to get my hopes up. What do you predict?

BTW — The final football polls came out today the and the football team ended up ranked 15th in the coaches poll and 16th in the AP poll. Well done Cougs!