BYU Basketball: Is This Cougar Team Good Enough to Make NCAA Tournament?

As recently as January 9th, ESPN's "Bracketologist" (the proper technical term) Joe Lunardi had the Cougars as an 11th seed in the NCAA Tournament. While nobody wears glasses that have bluer tinted lenses than myself, I was surprised by this prediction.

Lunardi has BYU, St. Mary's and Gonzaga all playing in March Madness. While all three teams have solid recent track records, I am doubtful that the West Coast Conference has enough built-up credibility and national respect to have three of their teams chosen on Selection Sunday. I think that two WCC teams is more realistic, with a good chance that only the conference champion is taken.

In either of those two scenarios, BYU currently is the odd team out of the three. BYU has no wins against any team in the top 50 RPI. They do have five wins against decent teams (RPI 51-100); however, nine out of their 14 wins have come against teams with RPI lower than 150 or that are not Division I. That's to say nothing of the increasingly ugly loss against a bad Utah State team.

While BYU has built up some credibility with its three total March Madness wins in the last two seasons, the 2012 team needs more signature wins. Although the Baylor game showed this team, when firing on all cylinders, can play (at least at home) with elite teams, the game still counts as a loss.

BYU has three games left (two against No. 9 RPI Gonzaga and a home rematch against No. 28 St. Mary's) that can boost their resume. BYU, in my opinion, needs to win at least both of the home games against Gonzaga and St. Mary's to have a chance of getting an at-large berth on Selection Sunday. Even with those wins (presuming there is no hiccup against the remaining mediocre teams they face), it seems probable that the Cougars will need to win the WCC Tournament to get in.

The question then remains: Can this team pull it off? Can they first make it to the tourney and then make a run in it post-Jimmer? To those questions, my expert opinion is... I have no idea.