How BYU scheduled (and won) its way to Selection Sunday


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PROVO — BYU is making its 28th NCAA tournament appearance, and its 21st since seeding was expanded to the entire field in 1979. Of those 21 appearances, 16 have been as an at-large entrant. Until this season, BYU had never received an at-large bid with as many as 11 losses.

So how did 23-11 BYU not only earn a spot in the field, but grab a better-than-expected 10 seed? The answer was in large part earned during the dog days of November and December, when the Cougars were playing a non-conference schedule that would eventually rank among the top five in all of college basketball.

BYU faced eight non-conference opponents which qualified for the NCAA tournament, defeating four of them, with two of the victories coming away from home. If there was any message sent by the selection committee on Sunday, it's that schedule really matters.

A BYU team that most high-profile bracketologists had barely sneaking into the field from the back of the bubble was in reality comfortably in the field of 68 (seeded 39th overall), while a 23-9 SMU team that ended the regular season ranked in the top 25 and was generally considered a safer tourney pick was left out of the tourney.

BYU's non-conference and overall schedule strengths were ranked 4th and 25th respectively (CBSSports.com), while SMU ranked 114th and 295th. End of story, as far as the committee was concerned.

"In SMU's case, their downfall, their weakness, was their schedule," selection committee chair Ron Wellman told reporters on Sunday night. "It was one of the worst non-conference strength of schedules...really, the glaring weakness about SMU was their schedule."

BYU head coach Dave Rose knows that the way he put together his team's non-conference slate ended up playing a notable role with the committee.

"We decided that we were going to change the (2013-14 scheduling) model to a certain extent," said BYU head coach Dave Rose on Sunday, "and we really challenged our team."

"I just believe that these guys went through a really difficult schedule in the non-conference (part of the season), and I'm just really glad to see that they were rewarded for it.

"I had quite a few discussions with our staff, when we were scheduling the games, because I wanted the (difficult) games. I felt like our schedule was pretty well put together, and were just trying to finalize the last two or three games. In years past, we kind of took the ones that fit the best for us to win, and this year, we didn't; we took two road games. We took a road game at Stanford, and we took a road game at UMass...and anytime you get into exempt tournaments, you have a chance to play really good teams. We got Texas and Wichita State (at the CBE Hall of Fame Classic), which turned out to both have terrific seasons.

"We didn't finish the schedule last year in a normal way--we actually waited and took some really tough games, and I think it really paid off."

BYU guard Anson Winder said "we knew we had a pretty tough schedule throughout the year, and we had some good wins down the stretch; we kinda hoped that would carry us into the tournament."

*******

BYU's Thursday meeting with West Region 7 seed Oregon is a rematch from late December, when the Ducks defeated the Cougars by four points in overtime on Oregon's home floor in Eugene.

After defeating BYU, the Ducks were 11-0, and would improve to 13-0 before going through a stretch in which they lost eight of ten games, only to recover with an 8-1 run to end the season.

"They're playing really well right now," said Rose. "I anticipate it should be a really good game."

BYU is game-planning for the Ducks without starting point guard Kyle Collinsworth, who is out for the remainder of the season with a torn ACL suffered in the Cougars' WCC title-game loss to Gonzaga. Rose is confident that lineup changes earlier in the season have prepared BYU for the modifications made necessary by the Collinsworth injury.

"We've re-invented ourselves a couple of times--when we came back from the first road trip in league and made an adjustment in our starting lineup (Skyler Halford for Matt Carlino), then after the St. Mary's game, we made another adjustment (Winder for Halford and Luke Worthington for Eric Mika), and we have found different ways to make this work with our guys, and we're going to have to do that again.

"The real positive thing that we can hang our hat on--and expect good results--is that we're trying to re-invent this group with experienced guys. Mattu's a guy who has played a lot of minutes, and will play a lot more at the point. Anson is a guy who's a fourth-year junior; we depend a lot on him. It's going to give Skyler Halford some more minutes, and he has played really well in the middle of the year for us, and it will give Frank Bartley the opportunity that he had in the non-conference schedule, when he was really a factor for us. We'll look to Josh Sharp for (some rebounding).

"You can tell from the practices that they're really excited for the opportunity. The whole team is obviously disappointed for Kyle and how it affects us, but moving forward, we'll try to maybe re-invent ourselves maybe one more time."

Collinsworth's absence creates a significant void in BYU's lineup; he is the team's second-leading scorer (14.0 points per game), leading rebounder (8.1 rebounds per game) and leading distributor (4.6 assists per game), but Rose thinks that Collinsworth's loss might be felt even more keenly in the locker room and huddles.

"We'll really miss him," says Rose. "We'll miss his presence, because he's got really great leadership skills, and our team has really relied on him."

Carlino, who will be handed the starting point guard responsibility in place of Collinsworth observed that "we're all just going to have to step up because replacing Kyle, you just can't do it."

Having guided his team through a season of considerable adversity, Rose is confident that his players will respond to the latest rough patch with exemplary efforts this week in Milwaukee.

"We'll draw on the fact that these are quality guys, and they are talented players, and we need to find their best basketball right now," Rose said. "These lights are bright in this tournament, and it's the beautiful thing about playing in the NCAA tournament--it feels really special. It's different, and hopefully your guys can perform at their best in those bright lights."

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