If you hadn’t noticed already, the biggest surprise on the national basketball scene is BYU. There are no real stars, the leading scorer comes off the bench, and most people outside of Provo couldn’t name a single player on the squad. Which might be why the Cougars were picked to finish 13th out of 14 schools in the Big 12 Conference preseason rankings.
Yet somehow the Cougars have won 12 of 13 games — their best start in 35 years — and climbed to No. 12 in the AP national rankings. They have been ranked for six consecutive weeks, the longest streak since the Jimmer Fredette era, about a dozen years ago. If you like overachievers and teams that play, well, like teams, this is your team. In an increasingly star-driven game, the Cougars are a rarity.
It gets better if you’re a Cougars fan. The NCAA uses the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, “as the primary sorting tool for evaluating teams.” It consists of three basic components: a team’s winning percentage, average opponent’s winning percentage, average opponent’s opponent’s winning percentage (follow that?) and mixed in there is game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and a lot of other esoteric metrics (the formula is only slightly less complicated than Einstein’s general relativity equations). Anyway, it’s a long way of saying that NET ranks BYU No. 2 in the country, behind Big 12 rival Houston.
The other major poll — another complicated slew of metrics — also favors BYU. The highly respected Pomeroy computer ratings rank BYU No. 4, trailing Houston, Purdue and Arizona.
BYU has never earned such respect. Sports Reference ranks this 2023-24 team the best in the history of the school. Better than the Ainge-led Elite Eight team. Better than the Jimmer teams. Better than the Dick Nemelka and Kresimir Cosic teams.
It isn’t even close. Sports Reference used a formula that calculates average point differential and strength of schedule and came up with a score of 28.30; the next best teams — the 2009-10 and 2010-11 Jimmer teams — scored 18.82 and 18.65, respectively.
The Pomeroy Ratings consist of another vast collection of esoteric numbers, but there are two figures that stand out to a semi-casual observer for the Cougars. Their “adjusted offensive efficiency” (points scored per 100 possessions, adjusted for opponent) is the second highest in the country, behind Alabama. The numbers also reveal that the Cougars have one flaw: strength of schedule. Only two teams in Pomeroy’s top 25 have weaker schedules.
Which says something about how well the Cougars are playing; they have earned a high ranking even with the weak schedule mixed into the numbers.
The Cougars rank fifth nationally in scoring average, at 90 points per game, with a 58.5 effective shooting rate from the field. The Cougars lead the nation with a whopping point differential of 28.8 per game.
All this is nice if you’re in the BYU camp, but things could unravel in a hurry. The schedule is about to become much more difficult. The Cougars will begin Big 12 play at home against 11-2 Cincinnati on Saturday night. The Big 12 is considered by many to be the best basketball conference in the country.
The league has five teams in the top 17 of the Pomeroy rankings, including Houston, which is No. 1 in Pomeroy and NET and No. 3 in AP. All of which is business as usual. The Big 12 put seven teams in the NCAA Tournament last year (for the seventh time in 12 years) and has won two of the last three national championships.
The Cougars have no future NBA first-round draft picks, but they come at teams in waves. Nine players play an average of more than 18 minutes per game (eight over 20 minutes), and six score in double figures — senior Jaxson Robinson, junior Trevin Knell, senior Noah Waterman, sophomore Richie Saunders, senior Spencer Johnson and junior Fousseyni Traore. The bad news for opponents is that BYU has reeled off 12 wins at less than full strength. Traore, last year’s leading scorer, has missed more than a month of play (seven games) with a hamstring injury; he returned to practice this week. Dawson Baker, a high-scoring transfer, has played in only three games because of a foot injury.
Whether the Cougars live up to their ranking(s) remains to be seen as they begin the most difficult part of their season.
