Placed at 7th Spot in Big 12, How Can Cougars Turn Tides in Their Favor at March Madness?

The NCAA college basketball fans are excited as the March Madness is just around the corner. With so many potential contenders from various conferences staking their claim to the national championships, we can expect some surprising performances from some of the dark horses. Amidst those is the Big 12’s underrated team, the BYU Cougars.

Ranked 25th in AP’s latest rankings, Mark Pope’s crew has shown some promise this season. Some popular analysts of the sport are even suggesting ways they can go deep into the business end of the tournament.

“Physically limited” experts have their say on BYU Cougars

The Cougars recently suffered a heartbreaking 84-74 Big 12 Conference loss against Kansas State. Following this, some familiar observers of the game gathered and shared their valuable inputs. On the latest episode of The Field Of 68: After Dark featuring Rob Dauster, Jeff Goodman, and Randolph Childress reacted to BYU’s defeat. A question was directed towards them – what is Cougar’s ceiling in the NCAA?

Randolph went ahead and said, “I think they’re a good team. But, I never thought they should have been rated as high as they were. They’re gonna be in a tournament. I don’t have them making a run. How deep they go in the tournament is going to be dictated by their first matchup.”

Soon after, Jeff Goodman jumped into the conversation and had his say on the topic. Jeff said, “They’re just physically limited. This is probably a nice way of putting it. They’re not making their threes. Defensively, they had a really hard time against athletic teams. There are a lot of athletic teams in the Big 12. They gotta trade threes for twos.” Subsequently, Rob Dauster also agreed with Goodman and further added, “If they are not making their threes, they got no shot. More often than not this year, they didn’t make their threes.”

Consequently, these constructive conversations help us wonder what the stats say about the Cougars.

A look into BYU’s numbers

The Cougars are having a mixed season so far. They’re currently placed at the 7th position in the Big 12. In addition to this, they have a 50% win record in their conference campaign. However, it has been difficult for the visiting teams to breach their fortress as they have won 14 out of their 16 games at home. That being said, they’re having a dismal season on the road, being victorious on just two occasions. Overall, they’ve managed a respectable 19-8 win-loss ratio so far in the competition.

Moving on, BYU has stacked some impressive team stats that cannot be ignored by anyone. They’ve been scoring at an average of 82.8 points which places them 22nd in the country. Another impressive offensive stat is their ability to distribute assists per contest. They hold the 3rd best figures in that department. Defensively too, the team is not doing that bad as a rebound rate of 40 per game ties them at the 33rd spot. Further, they don’t allow their opponents to go beyond 69.3 points in any game.

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With a more than decent field goal percentage of 46.6, the Cougars could only bury 35% of their attempts from the 3-point range. As it turns out, that needs to go up if they wish to end up big in the knockouts. But, do they have the kind of players that can help them achieve that?

Who can the Cougars rely on?

There is no doubt that BYU’s locker room consists of some impactful players. Leading the offensive charge is their No.2 Jaxson Robinson. The 6′ 7″ guard has scored a total of 362 points while maintaining an average of 13.9 points per game. Providing him the required assistance is the junior guard Trevin Knell.

The 6′ 5″ athlete is stepping up and delivering at an average of 11.3 points per game. On the defensive end, senior pro–Noah Waterman–is grabbing the most rebounds at a noteworthy rate of 5.8 per outing. Spencer Johnson and Fousseyni Traore are the other talented ballers to watch out for in the locker room.

There is no denying that the BYU Cougars possess enough firepower to topple some of the big names in the NCAA. Its fandom will be hoping to see them put on a fight in the knockout stages of the competition.