March Madness is upon the Cougars of BYU
Woohoo! March is here.
Since BT is back up and running I figured I would bring my series of BYU sports posts back here now.
For those of you not paying attention to this sort of thing, BYU men’s basketball is in the midst of its winningest season ever. BYU already has 28 wins to go with its only 4 losses through the end of the regular season. The Cougs have been ranked in the top 10 this season and are currently ranked in the top 15. BYU is led this year by arguably the best player to come through Provo since Danny Ainge, junior guard Jimmer Fredette.
This week the Mountain West conference tournament (aka “the UNLV Invitational”) will be held in Las Vegas. Despite BYU’s incredible season the Cougs come in as the #2 seed. Two of the four regular season losses came at the hands of #8 New Mexico and the Lobos sewed up the regular season title and the #1 seed in the MWC tournament with a close win in Provo a week ago as an ailing Jimmer watched from the bench. BYU will kick things off with a game against TCU on Thursday. That game should not present much of a challenge but Friday the Cougs will likely be facing UNLV, the only team that beat BYU soundly this season. BYU wouldn’t mind a chance at redemption for that loss in Vegas I think. With any luck the Cougs will get another shot at New Mexico in the finals on Saturday as well.
The perfect scenario for BYU would be solid victories over TCU, UNLV and UNM. That would likely lead to a 3 seed in the NCAA tournament starting next week. With two wins in the MWC tourney the Cougs would probably be looking at a 4-5 seed. With only one win the seed could drop to a 5-6 I imagine. All of this matters because the better the seed in the Big Dance, the better the chances are of advancing into the tournament. Winning in the NCAA tournament at all is something BYU hasn’t done since I was a student there in 1993 so that is a huge deal for the team and fans.
I am on record predicting a 30+ win season and a Sweet 16 berth as early as last September. If mononucleosis-stricken Jimmer Fredette can stay healthy it looks to me like my predictions still have a pretty good chance of coming to pass.
Rise and Shout Cougar fans. It’s March!
Yawn.
Comment by Scott B. — March 9, 2010 @ 12:06 pm
Re: comment no. 1
[sighs] So typical of Aggies to use only mono-syllabic responses. And non-responsive ones, to boot.
Yeah, rise and shout — ’tis March, indeed!
Comment by Hunter — March 9, 2010 @ 12:16 pm
For the first time in years I may actually pick BYU to win a tourney game. They may have enough talent to overcome their historic issues with the first round of the big dance big dance. I call this the “BYU JJ Reddick rule”.
I was there when they destroyed TCU last weekend. BYU is deep there are like 6-8 quality players on that team. This depth should really help them.
Comment by bbell — March 9, 2010 @ 12:49 pm
Just tell your Aggies to keep winning Scott. It will help BYU’s RPI. They can send BYU a thank you card if they manage to make the Big Dance. That early season anomaly is still USU’s primary accomplishment this season and could be enough to get them in.
Comment by Geoff J — March 9, 2010 @ 12:50 pm
bbell,
I’d say there are nine top quality guys on the team now. The starting five (Fredette, Emery, Haws, Miles, Hartsock) and the next four (Tavernari, Loyd, Abouo, and Davies). Lately the bench four have been largely outplaying the starters so it will be interesting to see who gets the most minutes this week.
One thing for sure is that a deep bench won’t hurt with back-to-back games.
Comment by Geoff J — March 9, 2010 @ 12:53 pm
At this point, Geoff, BYU’s RPI is no longer much better than USU’s, and BYU can likewise send USU a thank you card for helping their seeding prospects by giving them another Top 50 opponent to improve their SOS, which is considerably lower than even USU’s.
Let them both keep winning, as far as I am concerned. We already know which team is better.
Comment by Scott B. — March 9, 2010 @ 1:47 pm
We already know which team is better.
Hehe. Indeed we do Scott.
Comment by Geoff J — March 9, 2010 @ 2:01 pm
In the TCU game 3-4 guys came off the bench after TCU went on a run. The guys off the bench were as good as the starters so your observation is good Geoff.
Comment by bbell — March 9, 2010 @ 4:16 pm
One win down for the Cougs. Jimmer drops 45 on TCU. Unfortunately we may have lost Tyler Haws for a little while. He got an eye pretty severely gauged it seems.
Comment by Geoff J — March 12, 2010 @ 12:22 am
Crap.
BYU continues its ineptitude at UNLV and loses a close one there. The team fails to reach the 30 win plateau in the regular season. That means one of my predictions fell short by one game. Now the Cougs are looking at a 6-7 seed I think. BYU hasn’t been able to win the close games late in the season. My sweet 16 prediction isn’t looking great right now either.
Comment by Geoff J — March 13, 2010 @ 1:45 am
It is so endearing to watch you guys wrangle about your cute little WACs and Mountain Wests, and who will be on the bubble and whose rpi is in the top 50.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk.
Comment by Mark Brown — March 15, 2010 @ 5:40 pm
Mark,
The problem for you Jayhawk fans is that anything short of a title will be a disappointment. I imagine the rock chalkers will be on suicide watch if their boys don’t make the final four.
Comment by Geoff J — March 15, 2010 @ 7:15 pm