After last night’s BYU basketball win on the road against #10 Iowa St in double OT, things were getting crazy. BYU was being talked about more than ever. There was a sweet guard to guard alley oop, a run down block in the last 3 minutes of the game that made its way onto Sportcenter top 10, and CBS college basketball analyst, Seth Davis, mentioned that BYU is a Final Four contender with how they are playing right now.
People are saying that BYU is playing as well or even better than anyone in the country, calling Kevin Young to be in the running for the coach of the year in the Big 12, and being the hottest team in the country.
I try not to get my hopes up with BYU because they always seem to break my heart, but this team looks different. BYU was never able to win on the road against good teams. Now we have beaten 2 top 20 teams on the road, one of which was a top 10 team. We also seemed to learn how to close the game out. Remember at the beginning of the season when we were like 0-10 in one score games? BYU has figured out what to do and I think its a huge collective effort and last game was a huge sign of that. Demin, Hall, and Richie all played a big part in scoring when needed.
Game Recap vs #10 Iowa St
BYU and Iowa St last night was just a weird game. One moment BYU looks like they are the best team and one moment they cant score to save their lives and are turnover machines. If I told you at the beginning of the game that BYU would not score for the first 6 minutes and had 29 turnovers, do you think that would have resulted in a win? And a win against #10 Iowa St on the road? Well it happened. BYU won by 3 in double OT. It was the game of the year so far. BYU also picked up their first win ever in Ames, Iowa.
Box Score
This was a complete game. Every single guy who played contributed whether that was on offense, defense, or rebounding. Saunders had 23 points to lead BYU. Hall had 22 just right behind him. Both these guys were huge in both OTs. But its some of the other guys that I was super impressed with. Mag played shut down defense. Keita had 3 blocks and 15 rebounds. He made one of the most amazing plays I have ever seen, a run down block.
Team Stats
BYU didnt shoot horribly this game. They were 44% from the field overall and 34% from three. They also were 81% from the FT line. But there were some crazy stats. BYU outrebounded Iowa St by 28, 52-24. BYU had 17 offensive rebounds. That is crazy. BYU also had 29 turnovers compared to Iowa St’s 11. 29 turnovers is a lot! You usually have 29 in two games or even three. But what helped is that BYU actually played really good defense. The Cyclones shot 39% from the field overall and only 29% from three.
Game Preview vs Utah
BYU closes the regular season out against Utah. This game is on Saturday at 8pm MT on ESPNU. I think its going to be hard for BYU to come back, regroup, and get ready for this game. They are coming off a huge win, have to travel home, and start working towards this game. Just like football last year, Utah has a chance to derail BYU’s special season. It didn’t work out in football, and heres to hoping it wont work out in basketball too. But this time, it will be at the Marriott Center which will help.
Utah just narrowly lost West Virginia. So with them coming off a loss and playing a rival, I expect them to come in physical and aggressive. BYU cannot let the Utes control how physical this game is. BYU has to be the aggressors from the start.
We already did a huge big preview of Utah so we dont need to dive into them a ton. Since Craig Smith was fired, Utah has gone 1-2 withe their lone win against Arizona St. Utah played tough last night against West Virginia. They were pretty average when it came to the FG percentage and they had 16 turnovers which contributed to the loss. Utah has Madsen as the main scorer against West Virginia, while a good handful of other guys contributed to the scoring like Ausar and Sharavjamts.
Utah has a lot of weapons, just like BYU. I am interested to see how the bench plays for both teams. BYU and Utah both have good benches. Wahlin, Ausar, and Sharavjamts all came off the bench in the last game and contributed with 29 points.
Prediction
I think this game is going to be closer than people think. Its a rivalry game and anything can happen in a rivalry game. Right now, ESPN Analytics gives BYU an 82.9% chance to win the game. I would probably give BYU a 60-65% chance to win the game. The pressure is going to be on BYU. They are coming off a huge win, playing at home, and against your rival. They have everything to play for like a good seed in March Madness.
Utah has nothing to play for. They arent going to March Madness and wont be a high seed in the conference tournament. I can see Utah starting this game hot. They are going to be loose and ready to go. I think BYU eventually turns it on and pulls away in the second half as they win by 6.
Conference Tournament
Its time to talk the conference tournament and March Madness! It is fast approaching and I am so excited! Right now, BYU is going to be the 4 seed in the Big 12 conference tournament, which is huge. As the 4 seed, BYU gets a double BYE to the quarterfinals. There is no way that BYU loses the 4 seed in the conference tournament. Even if they lose to Utah, Iowa St is behind them and they would have the same conference record, but the tiebreaker would go to BYU due to head to head.
4 Seed Incoming
Now BYU can get the 3 and even the 2 seed in the conference tournament but its unlikely. In order for this to happen, Texas Tech has to lose their last two games, tonight vs Colorado and Saturday vs Arizona St. That would drop them below BYU and then Arizona has to lose to Kansas. I dont know if Texas Tech is going to lose to those teams.
As the 4 seed, BYU would play the winner of the 5 vs 12/13 game. Right now in the 12 and 13 spot are Cincinnati and Oklahoma St. I think either of those teams could give Iowa St a run in that 5 vs 12/13 game. The Cowboys did beat Iowa St at the end of February. But if all of the favorites win, BYU will play Iowa St again in the 4 vs 5 matchup in the conference tournament. That would be amazing to have that game again.
BYUs Big 12 Conference Tournament Schedule
Whoever wins the 4 vs 5 game plays Houston, should they win. The tournament will start on Tuesday, March 11th. But with BYU being the 4 seed right now, they wont play till Thursday, March 13th. That game will be at 10:30am MT on ESPN+. Should BYU win that game, in the quarterfinals, on Thursday, they would play Friday, in the semifinals, at 5pm MT on ESPN+. You can preview the setup of the bracket here.
March Madness
I love conference tournament week. Next week is conference tournament week and its going to be crazy. There will be games almost all day starting on Tuesday/Wednesday carrying into the weekend as teams battle to win the conference and get the auto bid to March Madness. But after all that goes down, the real fun begins. We have Selection Sunday on March 16th. The bracket is revealed and we figure out where the teams land!
Yesterday, most of the projections were updated before the games were played at night. So BYU is mostly projected as an 8 seed right now on ESPN, FOX, and the NCAA.com. I am sure that will change heading into the weekend. Most bracketologists update their brackets every Tuesday and Friday. So itll be interesting to see where BYU is come Friday. I can see BYU pushing for a 6 seed at this point. If they beat Utah on Saturday, and win another game in the conference tournament quarterfinals against maybe Iowa St again, they might be pushing for a 5 seed. Last year, BYU was a 6 seed.
