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MILWAUKEE — By any measure, no matter what the experts think or say, BYU belongs in the NCAA tournament.
The Cougars play in college basketball’s only tournament that counts in March. Seven of the last nine years, all under Dave Rose, BYU has been there.
So why all the criticism directed at BYU this year? The Cougars don’t get it.
“These guys deserve to be here,” said Rose, speaking the day before taking on Oregon in the tournament.
Most prognosticators figured the Cougars barely belonged in the field of 68, placing them in one of the two so-called play-in games. Instead, to the surprise of many, the NCAA gave BYU a No. 10 seed.
Immediately, CBS analyst Doug Gottlieb on the selection show derided BYU’s placement in the field. To him, the West Coast Conference runner-up didn’t even deserve to be in a play-in game. And Gottlieb wasn’t alone in his opinion.
To those on the inside, it’s a slam dunk.
“They’re there about every year,” said Oregon coach Dana Altman.
It's a real tribute to the guys and to our assistant coaches. And I'm happy for this group because this group went through some real challenges.
–Dave Rose
The critics point to BYU’s bad losses, and there were plenty of them. The Cougars provided plenty of ammunition to the they-don’t-belong-there crowd by losing to Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount , Portland and Pacific. NCAA tournament teams typically don’t fall to historically lousy teams from a mediocre conference.
It’s one thing to lose on the road to a nationally respected program such as Gonzaga, which BYU has done each of its three years in the WCC. But it’s entirely different to get blown out by a first-round NIT loser such as Utah.
Still, Rose has elevated his program to an impressive stature. Not even a season-ending injury to the team’s best player, Kyle Collinsworth, could knock BYU down a peg in the eyes of the selection committee.
“It’s a real tribute to the guys and to our assistant coaches,” Rose said. “And I’m happy for this group because this group went through some real challenges.”
Besides reputation, BYU also got into the tournament on the strength of great non-conference schedule. Rather than fill November and December with a slate of patsies like some teams do, BYU played the likes of Stanford, Iowa State, Massachusetts, Wichita State, Texas and Oregon. And all but Iowa State were away from the Marriott Center.
Related:
Can the Cougars beat the Ducks without Collinsworth?
The Cougars and Ducks met earlier in the season in Eugene in a game that was very representative of BYU's season. The Y. was winning for the majority of the game despite its porous defense. Late in the game, the Cougars could not close out a win because of their defense and inability to make free throws. Nate Austin and Eric Mika fouled out prior to the overtime period in which Oregon ultimately pulled away.Early in the season, when it’s common for programs to stack up a bunch of home games, the Cougars were on the court, in the classroom or cramped on an airplane. For years we’ve heard the selection committee looks kindly upon a tough non-conference schedule, and committee members backed it up by giving BYU a decent seed.
Given its conference affiliation, which is a killer on the RPI, BYU has to aim high in the first two months. For the Cougars, it’s either go big or go home early in March.
“I think in the last couple of years we called just about everybody in the country because we knew in the transition to the WCC that we had to try to beef up our non-conference schedule so our numbers wouldn’t be held against us in changing leagues,” said assistant coach Tim LaComb, who works with Rose on scheduling.
Give BYU the credit to play great teams and get rewarded for it. And expect more of the same.
For next year, Stanford and Massachusetts will come to the Marriott Center. BYU also will play in the Maui Invitational in a field that includes Arizona, Missouri, Kansas State, Purdue and San Diego State.
“The schedule ended up being a really good thing for us in the long run,” said LaComb. “We’re excited because it’s set up pretty good for next year as well. It’s something that we will continue to try to do, to play the best teams we can.
“A big part of that is will those teams come back here. We’ve kind of broken through. The last few years it’s been really hard to get teams to come back, but this year we’ve kind of broken through and got teams to come back.”
As any college player will say, tournament memories last a lifetime. Nobody understands it better than Rose, who played in the Final Four at Houston.
“What I really want for our players who come to BYU is to be able to have this experience,” Rose said. “I remember as a player (at Houston), the two NCAA tournaments I was able to play in, it’s like nothing else. It’s a life experience that you relate to forever.”
