The BYU Cougars were picked to finish second to Gonzaga in West Conference preseason balloting released Monday morning at the league's Men's Basketball Tip-off event in Los Angeles.

Additionally, BYU center Brandon Davies was the lone Cougar named to the WCC's Preseason All-Conference team, which featured four Gonzaga players and two from the predicted third-place finisher and defending league champ Saint Mary's.

Voting was conducted by the conference's nine coaches.

The 2012-13 BYU hoopsters hit the Marriott Center hardwoods under the lights for the first time on Wednesday night, with the Blue outlasting the White by a score of 84-70 in the annual "Cougar Tipoff."

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Tyler Haws paced the Blues and led all scorers with 26 points on 9-for-17 shooting, while Brandon Davies led the Whites with 20 points, despite not playing in the second half after taking a hard fall on his lower back right before halftime.

After Wednesday's practice, Bronco Mendenhall was asked if his team was ready for Georgia Tech. He quickly replied, "No, we're not; we could use another week."

Coach Mendenhall knows his defense will have its work cut out for them against Georgia Tech's spread-option offense, but it seems he's willing to concede yardage if he can keep the Yellow Jackets out of the end zone. "I'm only concerned about points," Bronco said. "Their rushing yards and passing yards don't matter to me. The points is what matters."

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For the second time in a little more than a month, a BYU basketball player is calling it quits due to injury. Head coach Dave Rose on Wednesday announced that forward Stephen Rogers' college career is over due to chronic knee issues.

It was on September 17th that Rose announced career-ending surgery for forward Chris Collinsworth. The latest news leaves BYU with only 11 scholarship players on the 2012-13 roster.

Here is BYU's official press release on the Rogers departure:

Amidst preparations for BYU football's first trip to Georgia Tech in a decade, head coach Bronco Mendenhall spent Tuesday night with KSL Newsradio for the live broadcast of his weekly show from LaVell Edwards Stadium. The Cougars' deep snapper, Reed Hornung, was this week's player guest.

You can catch a few of the talking points below or hear the show in its entirety in "Cougar Cuts," left.

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BYU fans get their first look at the 2012-13 Cougar hoopsters Wednesday night at the Marriott Center, with the staging of the annual "Cougar Tipoff" intra-squad game.

Head coach Dave Rose says "we'll split 'em up even and then play" two 20-minutes halves, with a running clock except for free throws and the final minute of each half.

"Hopefully, we'll get some people here," Rose said of the free-to-the-public event, "and the guys can kind of feel what it's like on a game day, and we can get some good work in against each other."

With BYU at the .500 mark two-thirds of the way through the 2012 season, head coach Bronco Mendenhall maintains that "there is progress, and I think the program is moving forward."

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Mendenhall met with the media after Monday's practice, and addressed the state of the program with BYU at 4-4 and heading into Atlanta to face 3-4 Georgia Tech on Saturday.

As the BYU football team prepares to head into South Bend to take on the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, head coach Bronco Mendenhall on Wednesday night joined KSL Newsradio for another edition of his weekly show, broadcast live from LaVell Edwards Stadium's President's Loge. Mendenhall was joined by offensive lineman Solomone Kafu.

You can hear the entire show in "Cougar Cuts," left.

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The Cougar hoopsters are a week away from putting on their game uniforms for the first time under the lights as the Cougar Tipoff introduces Dave Rose's 2012-13 team to fans at the Marriott Center. Next Wednesday night's event will precede the team's exhibition opener two nights later.

After Tuesday's practice at the Marriott Center, Rose told media that a closed Saturday scrimmage will also assist the coach in coming up with what will be his preferred starting lineup for the coming season.

"It will be interesting," said Rose about the opportunity to experiment with different combinations between this weekend and the start of the regular season on November 9th. "Through that period, we should be able to find a group of guys."

Plenty of Cougar fans are looking forward to seeing the historic sites at Notre Dame this weekend, but head football coach Bronco Mendenhall won't be joining them. After Tuesday's practice he reiterated that the team is making the trip to Indiana to play football, not sightsee.

Mendenhall acknowledged that the two church-affiliated schools have many similarities, including independence, and he values the relationship the two football programs have. While he looks forward to playing the Irish in coming years, he told the press there is no way to know if all of the schools' six contracted games will be played at this point.

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Through six games, the Notre Dame defense has allowed a total of three touchdowns, and none of them on the ground. The 5th-ranked Irish are second nationally in points allowed, 11th nationally in yards allowed, and in the top 25 in rush and pass defense categories.

Meantime, the BYU offense is meandering through a malaise that has the Cougars running a lot of plays, but not scoring many points.

Saturday, the 4-3 Cougars and 6-0 Irish meet in South Bend, and the hopes of an upset will ride on reversing a number of historical and current trends.

Heading into a meeting with No. 5 Notre Dame Saturday in South Bend, BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall on Monday lamented his team's defensive effort in last week's 42-24 loss to now-No. 8 Oregon State.

Meeting with the media after a late afternoon session at the Indoor Practice Facility, Mendenhall cited a lackluster outing from a defense that entered the Oregon State game in the top five nationally in most major statistical categories.

The coach says he sensed "maybe a little overconfidence, defensively, from all the accolades--I think there was a little edge that was missing."

Following BYU's second straight win, head coach Bronco Mendenhall addressed the Cougars' quarterback situation and welcomed the only player that was on the team for Bronco's first season--DL Russell Tialavea--on Wednesday night during KSL Newsradio's broadcast of "BYU Football with head Coach Bronco Mendenhall" at LaVell Edwards Stadium.

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You can catch the entire show in "Cougar Cuts," left, or on the show page in the BYU Sports Menu, lower right.

BYU head basketball coach Dave Rose previewed the Cougars' 2012-13 campaign at Wednesday's Media Day, saying that he's "excited for the season...I feel that our players are prepared for practice on Friday."

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Rose returns eight players from the 26-9 squad of 2011-12, with a ninth veteran present in Tyler Haws, who played for a season before his two-year LDS Church Mission to the Philippines. Newcomers to this year's team are 2011-12 redshirt forward Ian Harward, freshmen guards Cory Calvert, Cooper Ainge and Kyle Rose, and junior college transfers Raul Delgado (guard) and Agustin Ambrosino (forward).

With BYU's first ever "Blackout" scheduled for Saturday against Oregon State, the field at LaVell Edwards Stadium is getting a facelift. The mid-field oval "Y" was given a black paint job. The BYU players will be wearing brand-new black jerseys; while fans attending the game are encouraged to wear black.

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You can add Marcus Mathews name to the growing list of players who have seen their seasons end due to an injury. Marcus will apply for a medical hardship waiver after it was revealed that he will require surgery.

At 4-2 through six games, BYU's season has been decidedly star-crossed. Now, it becomes star-studded, with the Cougars scheduled to face Top 10 teams in consecutive weeks for the first time ever.

With Oregon State (10 AP/14 Coaches) at home and Notre Dame (7/7) on the road, the next two Saturdays will also largely determine whether the Cougars can continue to entertain hopes of another double-digit win season.

An improbable sweep would set the Cougars up for a ten-win campaign with even some leeway for a late-season loss. A split would force BYU to win out leaving South Bend, while being swept would cement the Cougars' single-digit win status and force a 4-4 team to worry simply about bowl eligibility--something that is still all but assured with Idaho and New Mexico State on the schedule in the season's final three weeks.

BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall on Monday confirmed that freshman QB Taysom Hill sustained a season-ending injury in Friday night's home win over Utah State.

Following what the coach called a "miscommunication" that led to Hill running the ball on the game's third-to-final play, Hill took a direct hit on his left knee, hyperextending the joint. The resulting injuries were damage to the LCL and a hamstring tendon, as well as what is being called a "deeper ligament connection." Head trainer Jeff Hurst termed it "a complex lateral injury" that will require surgery sometime in the next week.

Recovery time is expected to be four to six months.

It was before the start of the 2010 season, and BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall was talking about the remarkable run of health enjoyed by his starting quarterbacks in the seasons from 2005 through 2009.

John Beck and Max Hall had started 63 of 64 games during that five-year span, and Mendenhall said at the time that the string of healthy starts "speaks to our schemes. Seldom does the opponent have a clear shot at the quarterback before the ball is delivered. Usually the only time our quarterbacks get hit is when they don't read the play out correctly. The ball is gone too fast."

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Jabari Parker--the nation's most heralded high school basketball recruit--has narrowed his list of potential college destinations to five schools, including BYU. The other schools on Parker's list are Duke, Florida, Michigan State and Stanford.

Parker's family and high school coach confirmed the selection on Friday, with coach Robert Smith cited as saying that Parker, "who is Mormon, didn't include BYU out of generosity."

"All five schools are schools he's really interested in and really thinking about attending," Smith said in the aforementioned article. "He's really thinking about BYU. I know his faith has a lot to do with it. The coaching staff has been great with him. They've been a winning program. That's one of his choices."

BYU and Utah State meet Friday night in a game that should determine whether the Cougars are indeed back on track, and whether the 2012 Aggies really are the best team to come out of Logan in decades.

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After consecutive losses at Utah and Boise State while starting a physically-hampered quarterback, BYU was last week sparked by backup QB Taysom Hill and fellow freshman Jamaal Williams in a home-field shutout of Hawaii.