BYU Basketball this season has been a roller coaster ride. We have had great wins and horrible losses. Fought well and looked good against good teams and ended up losing. Had horrible energy and didn’t look good and won against bad teams. It’s been a mixed bag and who is this team? Well, BYU only has one game left on the season and then the conference tournament, and unless they win the conference tournament it’s not very likely we are going to any postseason tournament, NCAA or NIT.

Weekly BYU Sports Update

Women’s Sports

• Women’s Golf: Allysha Mateo had her third straight top 6 finish as BYU finished 9th out of 12 teams at the San Diego Classic. The women’s team will now have a week’s break off before going to California, again, for the Gunrock Invitational at Del Paso Country Club.
• Women’s Swimming and Diving: The BYU women’s team finished 3rd in the MPSF championship. Alexia Jackson finished in 1st in diving and Megan Bergstrom finished in 3rd in the swimming portion. They will get ready for the NCAA Nationals in the coming month.
• Softball: The Cougars spent the week and weekend at the Littlewood Classic in Tempe and ended up going 5-0. BYU went against #22 Arizona State in Tempe in the first game and the Cougars came out on top 10-5 behind 2 four-run innings. They then played Portland St and won 7-5, Oregon St and won 3-2, Illinois St and won 2-1, and DePaul and won 13-7. They are 7-2 overall on the season and play in the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic this week and weekend.
• Women’s Basketball: BYU traveled to Santa Clara where they won 78-72 behind 30 points and 16 rebounds from Lauren Gustin. She is seriously amazing! Tess Heal had 39 points for the Broncos but it wasn’t enough. The ladies then traveled to San Francisco on Saturday and lost 59-72 to fall to 9-7 in the WCC. They are now 4th in the WCC with 2 conference games left to play. Those 2 games are against second-place Portland on Thursday and first-place Gonzaga on Saturday. Both games are at the Marriott Center.
• Women’s Track and Field: The #23 women’s track and field team won the MPSF championship, winning it for the second straight year. They also added 5 individual titles as well. The Cougars will meet Washington this weekend in both Provo and Seattle. They will then head to the NCAA Indoor National Championships the following week.
• Women’s Tennis: BYU fell to Colorado St in Fort Collins in a nail bitter 3-4. The Singles matches were split 3-3, but Colorado St took the doubles point in 3 close matches. Emmie Moore did win her singles match to stay undefeated on the year (5-0).
• Women’s Gymnastics: The ladies lost to Boise State behind Boise State’s perfect 10 on bars. The Cougars struggled to keep up after falling and putting up uneven numbers on the bars. The ladies will go against Utah State this weekend for senior night.

Men’s Sports

• Men’s Swimming and Diving: The BYU men’s team had 5 divers in the top 10 and brought in some of the top times in the swimming portion to help capture their 3rd MPSF championship in as many years. After a successful conference season, the team will now prepare for the NCAA Nationals in the coming month.
• Men’s Golf: The team shattered the 54-hole school record to win the John A. Burns Intercollegiate title by 18 shots in Kauai, Hawaii. 4 players finished in the top 10 to help propel BYU to the title. The Cougars led the field in both Birdies and Eagles. The Cougars will be off for a couple of weeks before coming back for the Lamkin Invitational in San Diego, California.
• Men’s Basketball: The Cougars played Santa Clara at the Marriott Center on Thursday night and fell to the Broncos 74-81. It was a tight game most of the time but BYU couldn’t catch up in the end. Rudi Williams led the way for BYU with 20 points. BYU then traveled to Moraga to take on the #17 ranked St Mary’s. It was a close game and BYU was within 1 with just under 2 minutes to play, but they ultimately lost 65-71. That is now 3 games in a row that BYU has played really well, taken a lead in each of those games, been within 7 or fewer in the last 5 minutes, and has lost. BYU is now 6-9 in conference play and 7th in the WCC. BYU closes out the season with their last home conference game in the WCC against San Francisco on Saturday.
• Men’s Track and Field: They competed in their final MPSF Conference championship where they took home the team title after having 4 individual championships. 18 schools participated in the championships and 4 were ranked in the top 25. BYU beat all 4 to take home the title. They will look to continue this success this week against Washington.
• Men’s Tennis: The men’s team defeated visiting Weber State 4-0 earning a sweep in singles and dominating the doubles match. The Cougars then came back on Saturday and swept St Mary’s to open up WCC play 4-0. The Cougars now go on an 8-game road trip with 6 of those being nonconference games.
• Baseball: The team opened their season against Lousiana Tech in 4 game series. In the first game, BYU only allowed one hit going on to win 10-1. In the second game, BYU lost 6-8. In the third game, BYU came back to win 8-2. The 4th game will be played tonight. After this game tonight, BYU will travel to Lousiana Lafayette and start a 4 game series with them. BYU was led by their “Big 3” of Speede, Deming, and Pratt who all hit above .400, had 20 hits, 4 home runs, and 13 RBIs.
• Men’s Volleyball: The #8 BYU team fell in their first game to #2 UCLA in 3 sets. The Cougars came back the day and were swept again on the road falling again 0-3. BYU now has 4 losses on the season, all against top 10 teams. BYU had low hitting percentages in both games and couldn’t get any blocks to land against UCLA. The Cougars will travel to California again this weekend to take on Concordia University Irvine.

Was BYU Basketball Good for the Roster?

Here is BYU Basketballs roster:

Now, what does this roster tell you? Well, first, we don’t have a lot of size. Waterman and Atiki are our only big men, and Waterman isn’t a true big man who likes to play inside. Leaving us with Atiki and Fouss in the middle. Second, we don’t have shooting. Johnson and Knell can shoot, but Knell has been hurt leaving us with only Johnson who has had to create more this year. Lastly, we haven’t had amazing transfers this year. They have been mediocre. Robinson is good but has seriously regressed in the last 3 or 4 games, Williams is too inconsistent, and Waterman has struggled.

Taking all of that into account, I think we probably have had a pretty good season. We knew this season wasn’t going to be our best season ever. And with no real star, a lack of frontcourt players, and the inconsistencies of our transfers, we have had a winning season, which by all accounts, but particularly mine, seems like a win. It has given us a season where we know we have to work in the offseason to become better, especially going into the Big 12. I kinda like it and with having most of these same guys back, we should be able to grow together and get better. Remember, we just have to be like 18-12 overall and 4-10 in the Big 12 to get our names on the bubble next year. Maybe it’ll happen? And that’s an improvement, right?

WCC Conference Standings Update

Speaking of standings, here are the current standings as we head into the final week of conference play for the WCC:

BYU won’t play on Thursday and will conclude their season conference games on Saturday against San Francisco who currently sits 5th. Thursdays games, however, could be VERY important to BYU. I want BYU to get the 5 seed for the conference tournament and here’s why. The 5 seed would have us play against 4 seed LMU in the Quarterfinals who BYU is 1-1 against, and St Mary’s in the semifinals who BYU is 0-2 against but both those losses were by a combined 8 points, and then whoever in the finals, probably Gonzaga. If we are the 6 or 7 seed we have to play, Santa Clara who BYU is 0-2 against, and then Gonzaga who BYU is 0-2 against but both losses were by a combined 8 points, and then whoever is in the finals, probably St Mary’s. The 6 or 7-seed path is harder to me.

In order for BYU to get the 5 seed, a couple of things have to happen. On Thursday Portland has to beat San Francisco and St Mary’s has to beat Pacific. Both could definitely happen. That would make 4 teams all 6-9 tied for the 5 seed. BYU would then have to beat San Francisco on Saturday. Pacific and Portland play each other on Saturday but whoever wins won’t win the tiebreaker against BYU because BYU is 2-0 against Pacific and 1-0 against Portland this season, giving BYU the 5 seed. Did you follow all that? The biggest question mark will be Portland beating San Francisco on Thursday and BYU beating San Francisco on Saturday.

March Madness is Heating Up

We are just under 3 weeks till Selection Sunday when the bracket comes out. That means we are in for a WILD ride to the end with conference championships and conference tournaments coming and going. You can check out ESPN’s Joe Lunardi the Bracketologist’s predictions here. He breaks it all down and it’s super cool. There has been no definite college basketball powerhouse this season. It seems like every team that has reached #1 has lost right after that. But there are a couple of close conference races to watch in the next week or two before conference tournaments start:

• Big 12: Kansas and Texas are tied for first. They have one more meeting on the last conference game of the year on March 4th. That game could very well determine who wins the Big 12. Baylor is right behind them followed by Kansas St and Iowa St who are still lurking.

• ACC: Virginia has a half-game lead over Miami for the crown with Pitt a half-game behind them and Clemson one game behind them. NC State and Duke are still crawling their way back in but it’ll be tight for them.

Rumored Big 12 Meeting March 7th

The last thing I wanted to talk about was the rumors going around about the Big 12 and Pac 12 expansions. There are rumors that the Big 12 and Pac 12 are talking about merging and creating one huge conference. But the Big 12 doesn’t seem too onboard since they have their media rights deal with FOX and ESPN in place and the Pac 12 is not on the same page with ESPN and is only really talking with Amazon now. Well, there is now a report that on March 7th, the Big 12 will meet to talk about sending invites to 2 basketball-only schools (Gonzaga for sure, not sure about the second one, maybe Villanova?) and possibly accept and approve 2 all sports members (Arizona and Arizona St? They might be the first dominos). This would get rid of any merger with the Pac-12 talks.

But apparently, no Pac-12 schools will make a decision until a final offer from the networks they are negotiating with is on the table to be voted on so they can see just how much they may or may not be getting if they stayed or left. So it’s just a possibility right now and there are a lot of moving parts, but still pretty interesting.

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