First-year coach Kevin Young’s BYU Cougars have been the toast of the college basketball world the past few days after Tuesday’s stunning 91-57 conquest of Kansas at the Marriott Center in Provo.
Various blogs, podcasts and segments on national sports shows have mentioned BYU’s historic margin of victory over one of the blue bloods of college basketball. More importantly, the Cougars have moved to the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble.
In the latest Bracket Matrix projections, BYU appears in all 108 surveyed brackets. In the primary sorting tool for the Big Dance, the NCAA’s NET rankings, BYU is in the top 30 for the first time this season. It is also at No. 30 in the all-important Kenpom.com ratings.
In ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi’s newest Bracketology projections, BYU is on a 9 seed line, but listed in the bracket as an 11 seed for reasons related to BYU’s no-Sunday-play policy.
As Young said after BYU blew out the Kansas schools, it is a good time to be a fan of the Cougars, who have won three straight and are three games above .500 (9-6) for the first time ever in the Big 12.
How long will the good feelings last?
The red-hot Cougars will find out fast, because they are in Arizona for the next two games, beginning Saturday (8 p.m. MST, ESPN) against the No. 19 Arizona Wildcats at sold-out McKale Center in Tucson. After Saturday night’s game, they will head up the road to Phoenix and stay in the Valley of the Sun until facing the Sun Devils on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. MST, ESPN+) in Tempe.
Young said on his coach’s show Thursday night that this team enjoys spending time together and is looking forward to the longest road trip of the season.
“It could be a good bonding moment as we kind of get towards the end of the year, and break up the monotony as well,” he said.
How will it play out on the court? Can BYU (18-8, 9-6) surprise mighty Arizona (18-8, 12-3) after the Wildcats handled them 85-74 at the Marriott Center on Feb. 4? A win would almost certainly clinch an NCAA berth for BYU, and put the fifth-place Cougars into contention for a possible top four seed in the Big 12 tournament — and the double bye that comes with that.
Arizona is No. 9 in the NET, No. 11 in Kenpom.com, and alone in second place in the conference standings. As impressive as the win over slumping Kansas was, a victory at McKale in BYU’s first game there since Jimmer Fredette dropped 49 in a 99-69 win in 2009 would be even more monumental.
“Yeah, Arizona is really good, man. They are super impressive. I think they got a great roster,” Young said. “Tommy (Lloyd) is a really good coach. He’s been doing it in the college world for it seems like forever. They are a well-oiled machine.”
Arizona is 21-19 all-time against BYU, including 15-4 in Tucson. After breaking away from BYU in the final five minutes to win by 11, Arizona downed No. 13 Texas Tech 82-73 at home, then lost two straight — 73-70 at Kansas State and 62-58 in Tucson to No. 6 Houston. It defeated Baylor 74-67 on Monday in Waco to get back on track.
Young said the key Saturday night will be to stand up to Arizona’s physicality.
“I think we are a more physical team now than we were the first time we played them. They are probably the most physical offensive team (BYU has played),” Young said. “So we gotta do what we’ve done the past couple of games as far as meeting that physicality.”
Believing they can win will also be a big thing.
“Just that internal belief is what we gotta bottle up and continue to play with that kind of confidence,” Young said.
Arizona opened as a 7.5-point favorite.
After scoring 16 points in the 80-65 win over Kansas State and 10 in the blasting of Kansas, backup point guard Dallin Hall said the next step for BYU is to string together similar performances on the road.
“Super excited (to go to Arizona),” Hall said. “I have heard it is a great atmosphere. They got the better of us here. We will look at the film (to prepare). We are going to go down there and leave everything we have out there, both at Arizona and Arizona State.”
Arizona’s Lloyd, who is plenty familiar with BYU’s program because he was a longtime Gonzaga assistant before getting the head job in Tucson, met with reporters Friday afternoon and acknowledged that BYU’s big win over Kansas can’t be ignored.
“Listen, BYU played great. Kansas didn’t. I mean, it was impressive. No reason for me to draw any opinions on Kansas because we don’t play them for a few weeks,” Lloyd said. “But BYU looked great. They had their way with them, every which way. So obviously they are going to be feeling really good about themselves, coming down here.”
Later, Lloyd said nothing that happened on Feb. 4, or in the time since, will be important when the ball is tossed up shortly after 8 p.m. in the desert.
“They are a good team to me that is coming in here that is capable of winning in McKale. So we gotta treat that with respect,” he said. “I don’t know if they are playing with desperation or not. They played great last game. … They are on a little winning streak right now.”
