At this time last year, the BYU men’s basketball program was under a cloud of doom.
With a disappointing 19-15 overall record, a NET ranking in the mid-80s, a 76-69 loss to Saint Mary’s in the conference tournament semifinals, and no expected postseason possibilities, the Cougars’ final season in the West Coast Conference came to an end.
Provo seemed even more doomed because the team was about to embark on its inaugural season in the Big 12, regarded as the hardest conference in collegiate basketball.
In his 2022–23 season wrap-up for the Deseret News, beat writer Jeff Call stated, “Clearly, BYU has to do a lot of improving, and a lot of upgrading, to meet the challenge ahead in the Big 12.”
View it as a task accomplished.
Though BYU’s shock loss to Duquesne last Thursday, 71-67, forced another early exit from the NCAA Tournament, the team’s recently concluded 2023–24 campaign must be viewed as a resounding success. Yes, the Cougars, who were favored by over 10 points over the winners of the Atlantic-10 tournament, were bitter after their loss to the 11th-seeded Dukes. And it was anything but inspiring, losing 81-67 to Texas Tech in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament.
Even its most ardent detractors would have to concede that the program outperformed expectations after going 10-8 in league play and tying for fifth place with Kansas despite being picked to finish 13th in the 14-team league.
BYU’s final record was 23-11 overall.
Few people anticipated this, particularly those who were alive in 2022–2023 when BYU finished 7-9 in the WCC and failed to secure an NIT bid due to defeats at the hands of South Dakota and Pepperdine.
There were no “bad” losses for BYU this season as they went 12-0 in Quad 3/4 games and 11-10 in Quad 1/2 games to secure the No. 6 seed for the Big Dance. This seed would have likely been No. 5 considering BYU’s ranking of No. 17 on the Selection Committee’s overall list of teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament.
There were thrilling victories, too, with the Cougars defeating three teams in the Sweet 16: San Diego State and North Carolina State in nonconference contests, and Iowa State 87-72 in a crushing on January 16 in Provo that remains, all things considered, the team’s most impressive victory of the year.
The most notable defeats for BYU? In their lone meeting with Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars in January, the Cougars put No. 1 Houston on the ropes, rallying from a 13-point deficit in the second half to tie the game on a 3-pointer by Noah Waterman with just over two minutes left. With forty-five seconds left, Trevin Knell’s three-pointer would have put BYU up.
In yet another heartbreaking game, on March 6 in Ames, BYU led Iowa State by as many as 14 points in the second half. However, they lost 68-63 at Hilton Coliseum due to a lackluster finish and too many turnovers in the final minutes.
Leave a Reply