Cougars pacing for NCAA Tournament berth

Dave Rose has led the BYU basketball team to six consecutive NCAA Tournaments, and in those six seasons, the Cougars played an average of 33 games before Selection Sunday. With 16 games in the books, the Cougars are approaching the halfway pole of the 2012-13 season, and the question arises: is this an NCAA Tournament team?

The current and projected numbers seem to say "yes," but work remains to be done, since the Cougars aren't the mid-season shoo-in to go dancing that they have been in some recent seasons.

BYU is 12-4 through 16 games, and comparing the Cougars' current 16-game record to that of the last six NCAA Tournament entrants shows that the 2012-13 squad is generally in line with those teams.

The Bracket Matrix website tracks bracket projections on a weekly basis, and the latest update shows BYU in the NCAA Tournament field in 17 of 31 brackets surveyed, on the 12 seed line, with a seeding range of 10-12.

The RPI (Ratings Percentage Index), despite the criticisms of it, remains a fairly solid predictor of NCAA Tournament worthiness, and by that measure, BYU is also in the neighborhood when it comes to a reasonable expectation of selection for the tourney field. The Cougars possess an RPI in the low 30s, with a strength of schedule rated in the low-to-mid 30s by most analysts.

The bottom teams in the West Coast Conference competition won't help BYU's RPI, even should the Cougars win games against those teams, but beating the best of the WCC (Gonzaga, St. Mary's, Santa Clara) will do BYU's RPI considerable good.

BYU's non-conference schedule had enough big names to garner respect, but what it didn't have was wins in those games against those names; BYU lost by double digits to Florida State, Notre Dame, Iowa State and Baylor—the latter two on those teams' home floors. BYU's best out-of-league wins were at Big Sky Conference favorite Weber State, home to improving Utah, and versus Virginia Tech on a neutral floor in Salt Lake City.

When it comes to non-conference heft, this season's results are similar to those achieved last season, when BYU's best pre-league wins were home to Weber State and versus Oregon and Nevada on neutral floors.

In the last six seasons, BYU's average RPI entering Selection Sunday was 25, with a high of 4 (2010-11) and a low of 48 (2011-12).

BYU's average post-conference tournament win total was 27, but three times, the Cougars were at-large selections with 25 wins. Can the 2012-12 Cougars find at least 13 more wins before Selection Sunday, while keeping their RPI in the "respectable" range? I think so.

BYU has 14 more West Coast Conference games remaining on its schedule, plus the rescheduled game with Utah State, and a likely minimum of two WCC Tournament games in Las Vegas. That is at least 17 opportunities for 13 more wins, if 25 is the "magic number" BYU must reach to have realistic hopes of inclusion in the field of 68.

Gonzaga is clearly the class of the WCC this season, and BYU's game in Spokane will not be one the Cougars are favored to win. St. Mary's, while undefeated at home, may not quite have the edge of last season's team (which swept BYU), but again, a BYU road win there would likely be considered an upset. If those two games end up as BYU losses, the Cougars could afford only two other setbacks and still hit 25 wins before conference tourney title night—-which makes this Saturday's game at resurgent Santa Clara so huge. A weekend loss at the Leavey Center would leave very little room for error the rest of the way, and this is of course assuming that BYU would not have any so-called "slip-ups"—losses to the bottom five WCC teams, home or away.

Currently unbeaten at home, the Cougars will almost certainly be favored in every remaining Marriott Center game except perhaps the Gonzaga contest on Feb. 28, and that game comes in a crucial stretch for BYU and its NCAA Tournament hopes. The Cougars will host Utah State, visit St. Mary's and entertain Gonzaga in consecutive games, and all three teams are likely to be rated highly enough to positively influence BYU's resume, relative to bubbles and berths.

Beyond precedent, projection and speculation, the real question is: are these Cougars actually good enough--on the floor--to contend in the WCC and dance for a seventh consecutive season? The answer to that question is a bit more complex and while the team's current makeup doesn't exactly square with what I thought it might be, I believe BYU has the ability to get the necessary wins required to punch its ticket on Selection Sunday.

Any team with a pair of players averaging around 20 points per game (Tyler Haws, 20.9 ppg; Brandon Davies, 18.7 ppg) will be a handful for opponents, and when one of those players is capable of scoring 42 points in a game and joining the 1,000-point club by the end of his sophomore season, that team becomes particularly hard to handle. The only concern about Haws has to relate to his health and stamina, and averaging 32.8 minutes per game in his first post-mission season will test his physical limits. Getting him as much rest as possible in blowouts will have to be a priority.

Matt Carlino's recent play is perhaps the most encouraging sign as the Cougars march to March. The sophomore point guard has recorded back-to-back 20+ point games for the first time in his BYU career, and is one of three BYU players on the current roster with a career single-game scoring high of at least 30 points.

BYU's Big Three of Davies, Haws and Carlino are averaging almost 50 combined points per game, with the Cougars' starting five accounting for 76.6% of BYU's total points. This is actually right in line with the production levels of last season's starting unit, which scored 76.1% of the team's points.

Although the personnel/production formula appears to following form, I think there is a significant difference between the two teams that gives the 2012-13 Cougars an advantage over the 2011-12 group: the bench ceiling is higher.

Last season's substitutes were light on shooters, with only Craig Cusick considered a consistent threat from outside (38% 3PFG). The lone backup "big" was Nate Austin.

This season's bench includes not only Cusick, but Raul Delgado, Cory Calvert and Agustin Ambrosino. Anson Winder, as he was last season, gives additional depth on the guard line. Austin returns as a backup "4," and while Ambrosino can also play there, he is currently being moved over to the "3," where he can spell Haws and keep a scorer on the floor at that position. Ian Harward is having a tough go due to back issues, giving Bronson Kaufusi an opening to make a difference in a limited fashion. It is true that the newcomers haven't had as significant or consistent an impact to this point as I had projected, but the season is long, the minutes will be there, and the potential for bench contributions is greater this year than it was with last year's group.

Absent two injured scholarship players (Chris Collinsworth and Stephen Rogers), with a third scholarship player somewhat limited by health concerns (Harward), BYU is probably not as deep as Rose would like his team to be. But Cusick is a quality non-scholarship contributor, while Kaufusi is a rough-cut cross-over that will get opportunities to make plays, in one way or another.

The Cougars will need to avoid injury and continue to improve their team-wide shooting performance, but enough pieces are in place to get BYU to where it wants to go, and where it has been on each of the preceding six Selection Sundays: in the field.

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