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PROVO — The BYU men's basketball team hasn't been at 100% strength all season, but that hasn't stopped the Cougars from climbing.
The climb continued Christmas morning for the top-10 team in the NET and KenPom ratings.
BYU jumped back inside the top-15 in the Associated Press Top 25 after connecting on a season-high 16 3-pointers in a 101-59 win over Bellarmine. The 14th-ranked Cougars are the fourth-highest ranked team from the Big 12, behind No. 2 Kansas, No. 3 Houston and No. 12 Oklahoma.
No. 17 Baylor and No. 21 Texas are also in the AP Top 25, giving the conference an NCAA-high six ranked teams. The Big East is second with four, followed by the ACC, Big Ten and SEC with three each.
Purdue maintained its top ranking for the second straight week, receiving 46 of 60 first-place votes from the nationwide media panel. Arizona and UConn join the Jayhawks and Cougars in the top-five.
Florida Atlantic jumped up to No. 7 after a 96-95 double-overtime win over Arizona. It's the highest ranking in program history for the Owls (10-2), who returned nearly every player from last year's Final Four squad and added a signature win Saturday in a nationally televised win over the Wildcats played in Las Vegas that followed an unexpected home setback to Bryant and a loss to then-No. 20 Illinois at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 5.
"We wanted to play it in the worst way for a lot of reasons," FAU coach Dusty May said over the weekend, per the AP. "National television. Our guys wanted to be challenged. They love the challenge. And we felt our program was at a point where we needed these games to elevate even more than a Final Four run."
POLL ALERT: Florida Atlantic up to No. 7 in AP Top 25 men's basketball poll after beating Arizona; Purdue remains No. 1.
— AP Top 25 (@AP_Top25) December 25, 2023
Full poll: https://t.co/ZJG5mgWrsapic.twitter.com/LiUqABcNRI
BYU (11-1) moved up three spots after briefly falling out of the top 15 falling its lone road setback, 73-69 at rival Utah — which earned 45 points to come in four spots outside of the top 25.
With leading scorer Jaxson Robinson sidelined by what coach Mark Pope referred to as a mild ankle injury, the Cougars exploded for the seventh-most 3-pointers in a game in program history and third-most in the Marriott Center.
Noah Waterman scored 15 points to lead six BYU players in double figures, including 10 points and three assists in just the second game of his BYU career for former UC Irvine scoring wing Dawson Baker.
Saturday also saw the debut of four-star freshman Marcus Adams Jr., who was ruled eligible to play by a West Virginia judge that halted the NCAA's enforcement of multiple-time transfers across the country. Adams finished with 2 points, two rebounds and an assist that drew a raucous response from the announced crowd of 14,429 fans in the pre-Christmas Eve game at the Marriott Center.
"I loved that he was absolutely fearless on the offensive end. I like young guys that are fearless," Pope said of Adams. "This is a high school senior right now who is on his third school in six months, and he got the surprise call that he was going to be able to play this year. He walked out on the court with eight minutes left in front of 15,000 fans for the first time in his life. For him to walk out there and be fearless is really great. He's going to have a great future. He's got a lot of growing to do and he's going to do it. He's really blessed to be around these players and to learn how to be a pro from these guys."
The Cougars also got 9 points and four assists from Charlotte transfer Aly Khalifa, the "Egyptian Magician" with 34 assists and just two turnovers on the season. The 6-foot-11 big man hasn't had a turnover since the second game of the Vegas Showdown against North Carolina State during Thanksgiving break.
Khalifa's 17-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio ranks first in the country, his 17.0 rating more than three times that of Utah State's Daris Brown II, who ranks second nationally with a 5.82 ratio (99 assists, 17 turnovers).
BYU wing Spencer Johnson is tied for 13th nationally with 61 assists and 17 turnovers, a 3.59 ratio.
BYU also ranks first nationally in assists per game, scoring margin and 3-pointers per game.
"We have a lot of guys that want to play together," Pope said. "It sure feels like they love playing with each other. We're playing a lot of guys, which is fun. There's no hesitation to make plays for each other because they know it's coming right back to them. Our depth is important. We still haven't had a game with a healthy roster. I would like to do that at some point but these guys answer the bell in spite of all that for a really impressive two-month run."
