BYU basketball blew the doors off of San Francisco in their final home game of the season. It was Senior Night. It was emotional. And it was a great win. But does it now install false hope into us Cougar fans as we go into the conference tournament this weekend? Maybe. Is it a bad thing? Maybe.

BYU Sports Weekly Update

Women’s Sports

• Softball: The lady Cougars played in the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic this week and lost 3 of their 4 games. They played #24 Missouri and lost 3-11, Texas A&M and lost 6-8, San Diego State and fell 1-4, and Long Beach State and won 6-5. Overall they are 8-5 and will play in the Trailblazer tournament this weekend in St George, Utah, against Oregon State, UNLV, Portland State, and Idaho State.
• Women’s Track and Field: The #21 women’s team recorded 2 top 10 times. One in the 5000m and one in the 3000m. They also had many athletes set new personal records. Cailee Faulkner broke a record, that was previously set by her, in the pole vaults. The NCAA Indoor National Championships are up next in 10 days on March 10 and 11.
• Women’s Gymnastics: BYU beat Utah State on Friday night 196.450 to 195.425. There were several season highs set on their senior night. After the first rotation, BYU had a very slim lead, but with each rotation, the lead grew little by little. The Cougars compete against Alaska this week in the Marriott Center.
• Women’s Basketball: The lady Cougars had their first game of the week canceled against Portland due to weather conditions. Their second game of the week was against #18 Gonzaga, where they had a lead at halftime, but fell 51-58. The ladies were down 1 with under 2 minutes left but after two made free throws by Gonzaga to stretch the lead to 3 with just over a minute remaining, BYU couldn’t inch closer. BYU will make up their game against Portland tonight and then head to the conference tournament this weekend in Vegas where they are the projected 4 seed.

Men’s Sports

• Baseball: The Cougars were swept this last week against the Ragin Cajuns of Lousiana Lafayette falling 3-4, 0-11, 1-2, and 10-11. Three of the games were one-run games. The team is now 2-6. They will play UVU and Omaha this week looking to get back on track.
• Men’s Track and Field: The #25 men’s team had Brandon Garnica finish second in the 5000m race while others took part and had new personal records. In another event, Lucas Bons took second overall in the mile while the 4×400 nearly broke its own record that was set two weeks ago. The team has 10 days till the NCAA Indoor National Championships.
• Men’s Volleyball: The #8 men’s team took on Concordia in Irvine. In the first match on Friday, the Cougars swept Concordia while Senior libero Mitchel Worthington recorded a career milestone of 500 career digs. BYU and Concordia met again on Saturday with BYU winning in a 5-set thriller. The team will take on Grand Canyon in Arizona this weekend.
• Men’s Tennis: The Cougars took on the Broncos of Boise State this last weekend but the Broncos defended their home court as the Cougars lost 1-6. The Cougars’ only win was from one of their doubles matches. BYU will now travel to Texas for two matches this week. The first is against Texas Rio Grande Valley and the second is next week.
• Men’s Basketball: The men’s team took on San Francisco in the Marriott Center in their final home game of the season and on senior night. The Cougars played maybe their best game of the season, beating San Francisco 87-61 behind 21 points from Rudi Williams. He got the start in the final home game of his career and he never looked back setting the stage and tempo for BYU. He also elapsed 1,000 career D1 points. BYU will play on Friday against the winner of Portland and San Diego as they look to make a deep run in the conference tournament.

BYU Basketball with a Statement

BYU basketball was favored by 6 points against San Francisco on Saturday but somehow, it turned into a margin of 26 points as the final horn sounded. How you may ask did that happen? Well, I dont know if it was my prescence in the stands that helped spark the team or what, but the team looked energized and ready. Similar to the games when we had only lost by 1 to both Gonzaga and St Mary’s. The team was ready.

Rudi Williams got the start for the Cougars for the first time since the South Dakota game at the beginning of the season and he might just stick there with how well he did. I would not be surprised to see him start in the conference tournament games. He was masterful. Carving up the defense, hustling, and setting up players to make easy shots. He also only had 1 turnover. He seems to have turned the corner on giving away the ball like free candy.

4 Cougars were in double digits in scoring. Those were Williams with 21, Fouss with 17, George with 12, and Robinson with 12. The Cougars also played amazing defense. There was fight and hustle. The Cougars HAVE to play like that this conference tournament if they want to make any noise. BYU tied with San Francisco as they both had the same conference record but BYU gets the nod as the 5th seed and San Francisco as the 6th seed because BYU had a better NET overall rating.

WCC Basketball Conference Tournament

Speaking of the conference tournament, last week I talked about how BYU needs to get the 5 seed because the road to make a run is easier. Well, here we are. BYU is the 5 seed!! They play either San Diego or Portand which BYU destroyed in each of their games this season. If they win, they play 4 seed LMU, which BYU lost to on the road by 5 but won at home by 28. They then face St Mary’s, which is the overall number 1 seed, in the semifinals, but to me, not as talented as Gonzaga and vulnerable. They then take on whoever makes it the finals, most likely Gonzaga.

The opportunity is there for BYU. Will they take it? Will we see the hard nosed, physical, hustling BYU team or will we see the not awake, not ready BYU team? Time will tell. I think BYU needs to make the championship game in order for them to be considered for the NIT. And we all want that because we all want more BYU basketball.

Senior Night for BYU Basketball

Saturday was also Senior Night for the team. I have talked about this in my earlier blogs but BYU basketball is projected right now to only lose 2 players in Rudi Williams and Gideon George. I want to highlight these players a little more.

Rudi Williams

Rudi is from Hamilton Ontario, Canada. He has 2 sisters and 4 brothers. When he was 11 or 12, he got put in a homeless shelter and had to live there for about half the school year. A lot of things were hard for him growing up and he had to work hard for everything. He started to play sports and basketball to help him get away from his tough life. He had to leave Canada because he wanted to play basketball and saw more opportuniteis over in the states. Rudi went to Florida and started in junior college eventually working his way to BYU after being at Kansas State and Coastal Carolina. Here is a deep blue episode on Rudi.

Gideon George

Gideon is from Minna, Nigeria. He also just got married this year. Gideon sent 5,000+ shoes from a drive last year to send shoes to kids in Nigeria. Whenever possible, he wants to always give back to his parents and family. He has helped his parents and family buy their first house. He had a brother who played at Pittsburgh from 2017 to 2020. Before he came to BYU he went to New Mexico Junior College for two seasons. He has been a leader of the basketball team for the last 2 years and has shown tremendous improvement. Here is a deep blue episode on Gideon.

College Basketball News

We are in the heart of the college basketball season and its coming down to the wire! Just some news to start off with, UCLA won the Pac 12 conference season championship for the first time in 10 years. They will look now to also win the conference tournament champioship when that gets under way early next week.

Some games to watch this weekend as the conference season games close are, in the ACC Pitt vs Miami on Saturday for first in the conference and Kansas vs Texas in the Big 12 on Saturday for first in the conference as well.

Mid-major conference tournaments are starting this week while the major ones will start next week. The March Madness bracket will be released 13 days from today!

Also, if you want to see what the projections are for March Madness, check out Joe Lunardi, the bracketologist for ESPN. His predictions here.