BYU Basketball Currently Projected as ‘Last Team In’ With March Madness Approaching

It’s the most wonderful time of the year if you’re a college basketball fan, because March Madness is right around the corner. As college hoops fans, we’re all keeping an eye on how our team stacks up against the competition, especially as the stakes seem to get higher and higher for each remaining game through the rest of the regular season.

For BYU, like most teams, there is a lot riding on the seven-game stretch that awaits the Cougars to finish things out. There will be revenge opportunities, including a road game vs the Arizona Wildcats, and a home game vs rival Utah. There will also be opportunities for statement wins against top conference opponents like No. 17 Kansas (home) and No. 10 Iowa State (away).

What does Joe think?

In Joe Lunardi’s latest bracketology projections, he has BYU slated as the last team in the tournament. In Lunardi’s words, this is bad news for the Cougars given their weak non-conference schedule.

“When the final few teams are competing for the very last at-large spots, the committee, nearly without fail, has dinged those with truly ugly non-league schedules.” In other words, BYU can’t leave any doubts in the committee members’ minds .

BYU’s non-conference schedule difficulty ranks 288, which puts it in the bottom quartile of all D1 teams. The Cougars have missed out on a few opportunities to put the committee’s doubts to rest this season, but will have ample opportunity to do so over the next seven games.

With March around the corner, BYU is trending in the right direction

If you’ve been watching Kevin Young’s team play since the beginning of the season, while there have been ups and downs along the way, his squad has shown clear improvement. Defensive chemistry is much improved, the offense has been more cohesive, and player rotations seem to be bringing the best out of every guy.

One of the most telling indicators of the team’s improvement (in this author’s opinion) has been BYU’s performance in close games during the final minutes. In the first few weeks of January, BYU suffered painful losses to Texas Tech, TCU, and Utah, all of which were decided by five points or less, and which ultimately came down to a few mistakes and missed opportunities. Then, in February, although the Cougars came up short against red-hot Arizona, they were able to close out those close games vs. Baylor, UCF, and West Virginia.

If the Cougars can win the games they’re supposed to win, and win one or two of the games they’re not supposed to win, we should have some extra BYU basketball to watch come March.