Patrick Kinahan: BYU basketball back in familiar spot


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SALT LAKE CITY — Once again, the BYU men’s basketball team has settled into a familiar spot, needing to hit the jackpot in Las Vegas to avoid failing to make the NCAA Tournament for a third consecutive season.

Good luck, Cougars. May the dice finally roll your way.

After failing to make a splash in the regular season again, BYU has to win the West Coast tournament to earn the conference’s automatic berth into the NCAA field. At this point, there is no other way into the only tournament that matters in college basketball.

In what has become customary, along with frustrating, BYU enters the final week of the WCC season likely destined to finish in third place. Another third-place finish would be the fifth time the Cougars have ended there in the seven seasons since joining the conference.

The problem is the NCAA selection committee traditionally has viewed the WCC as a two-bid conference, meaning it gets only one at-large berth. To complicate matters, BYU has yet to win the WCC conference tournament.

There is no shame playing second fiddle to Gonzaga, formerly a cute program tucked away in the Northwest that has become a national power built on the strength of routinely recruiting future NBA players. But nobody outside of Moraga, California, thought BYU would struggle to keep pace with Saint Mary’s, a cute program tucked away in the hills north of Oakland built on the strength of importing talent from Australia.

Yet, here are the Cougars, perpetually finishing down under.

Each year, the story changes but the results stay the same. For a multitude of reasons, BYU suffers a series of unacceptable losses to lowly WCC teams that derail any chance at earning an NCAA at-large berth.

This season, with a renewed emphasis on defense and shot selection, the Cougars still endured head-scratchers against Pacific and Loyola Marymount. They also needed overtime to escape embarrassing losses to the University of San Francisco and Pepperdine.

At least USF and Pacific have some measure of respectability, with each team owning a chance to finish above .500 in conference play. Pepperdine and LMU, conversely, flat out stink to the point of combining for a 4-28 conference record.

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Understandably, the legions of BYU supporters are growing restless with the repeated unmet expectations. Worse yet, some of them are reaching the dangerous level of apathy.

As usual in these cases, the noise on replacing the coach is becoming louder. In his 13th season as the head coach, Dave Rose annually produces 20-win seasons, but still some are calling for a new voice to lead the program.

At his semi-annual roundtable meeting with the local media last month, athletic director Tom Holmoe gave no inclination that Rose was in any kind of jeopardy. Holmoe’s relationship with Rose is strong enough that he delegated direct responsibility for the program to assistant athletic director Brian Santiago.

My guess is Rose, who deserves to go out on his own terms, coaches the team for another two seasons and then retires. But no matter who coaches the team, the problems will remain the same.

As it stands, BYU’s primary recruiting base does not extend significantly beyond Utah-bred players with an infinity for playing for their church-sponsored school and its basketball program. Typically, these types of players are better suited for complimentary spots as opposed to a starring role.

When Rose joined Steve Cleveland’s staff as an assistant 20 years ago, the two coaches often were able to count on substantial contributions from non-LDS players on teams that frequently earned NCAA berths coming out of the Mountain West, a conference at the time that was much stronger than the WCC. To return to that level, BYU has to bring in recruits with the talent of a Terrell Lyday, Keena Young, Rafael Araujo and Mike Hall coupled with the best LDS players.

The amount of defections in the program also has hindered BYU’s depth. In recent seasons, in a situation that is rampant in college basketball, several players have transferred out of the program, which has resulted in constant roster turnover.

During Rose’s tenure, several players had minor roles as underclassmen before blossoming as they gained experience. Unfortunately, many of those same type of players in recent seasons have transferred out to other programs, leaving BYU with a noticeable lack of talent coming off the bench. To better illustrate the point, BYU has no seniors on the roster this season.

Until these problems are addressed and whatever else ails the Cougars, the best bet might be to make regular appearances in the NIT.


![Patrick Kinahan](http://img.ksl.com/slc/2634/263499/26349940\.jpg?filter=ksl/65x65)
About the Author: Patrick Kinahan \---------------------------------

Patrick is a radio host for 97.5/1280 The Zone and the Zone Sports Network. He, along with David James, are on the air Monday-Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.

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