Brandon Davies: Does BYU Forward's Suspension Ruin Cougars Tourney Chances?

Nothing can derail a season more than an injury to a key player. However, when a top talent has to miss games, his team often rallies around him. It’s the old “win one for the Gipper” mentality.

So what happens to a team when a key player has to miss the rest of the season because of an Honor Code violation? How does a team come back from that?

The BYU Cougars announced this morning that starting sophomore forward, Brandon Davies, was dismissed from the team for the rest of the season for violating the BYU Honor Code.

There was no mention of what the violation entailed, but one has to imagine that anything that causes such a quick dismissal in the stretch run of such a historically good season must have been something significant.

While teammates make sense of the dismissal (and most assuredly assign blame to a player who should have known better or an athletic department that overreacted), the Cougars have to be thinking about the NCAA tournament.

With Jimmer Fredette in his last season and the Cougars poised for a No. 1 seed, this is a blow of epic proportions. Losing Davies doesn’t feel quite as bad in the face of the stats Jimmer has put up this season, but what Davies brought to the team is not something easily replaced. 

Davies led the team in rebounds and had the team's highest field goal percentage. Couple that with the fact that one thing BYU lacks is front court depth, and Davies is a critical blow to the team.

It also must be remembered that the success Jimmer has had during the regular season will be harder to come by in the tournament.

As the Cougars face more elite talent in the tourney, teams will find ways to contain Jimmer and make the rest of the Cougars beat them. Davies not only represented a good defensive presence inside, but he was their third leading scorer. This means someone is going to have to step up big, or the Cougars will have an early end to their fairy tale season.

The only bright spot for the Cougars is they still look poised to grab a No. 1 seed. They have two games left against New Mexico and Wyoming before the Mountain West Conference tournament.

There is a strong chance they can still win out and capture a No. 1 seed. This will give the a solid chance of making it to the Sweet 16 before they face a serious challenge.

Regardless of how things turn out, BYU has to know its journey to a NCAA Championship just got harder. In college basketball, where luck can account for success as often as skill, the Cougars just might have found that their luck has run out.