CougarCorner

I'm assuming that BYU's basketball season is over. Out of the WCC tournament. At least they won a game against a higher seed (LMU). I know Gonzaga is a juggernaut, but it is still disappointing that in 12 years in the WCC BYU didn't win a regular season championship or conference tournament. We've had some pretty talented players too (Haws X2, KC, Childs, Mika), but something has just been missing to put it all together. Overall, I felt that the WCC was a good fit for BYU for most sports. They've been good to us and the use and exposure of BYUtv has been great IMO.

I'm also assuming that BYU will not be invited to the NIT or any other post season tournament. BYU's NET as of today is 84. On 12/31/22 it was 108 so I guess you could say we improved the second half of the season. But, it's still a disappointment to me. No NIT essentially forced Rose to resign (yeah and health). Last season BYU's NET was 59. BYU finishes this season with 1 Q1 win (Creighton) and 1 Q2 win (Dayton). The Utah win ended up being a Q3. 3 Q3 losses and 1 Q4 loss (South Dakota). Please don't include the two Div 2 games as wins. This was a 17-15 season.
Rudi Williams and Gideon George are the only two seniors who will be leaving the program for sure. Once Williams finally got his TOs under control he was a pretty good PG. George really fell off the radar this season. I heard he got married mid-season and it wouldn't be the first time that someone has suggested that getting married somehow seems to take the fire out of the player.

I said in my other post that Waterman really should not be coming back. I also previously said this about Stewart, but he did show some promise late in the season so I'm ok either way with him staying or leaving. I don't think that Robinson should be pushed out, but if he wants to continue to start he needs to improve his game.

Really good article from Vanquish The Foe about reviewing Mark Pope's first 4 years. The author essentially does everything that I did in an earlier post. Here are a couple things that stood out to me:

Since Mark Pope joined BYU, the level of LDS talent isn’t the same. Collin Chandler is really elite and the highest rated recruit BYU has signed in the ratings era. Caleb Lohner was a highly rated recruit. Richie Saunders and Dallin Hall were solid three stars. Tanner Toolson was Mr. Basketball in the state of Washington. Jaxson Kohler went to Michigan State as a 4-Star kid and the biggest LDS kid BYU has missed on. Keanu Dawes was the highest rated LDS kid from the 2023 class, but elected to stay in Texas and go to Rice over several other P6 offers.

BYU has missed on guys like Kohler and Dawes, but overall BYU has recruited the LDS base pretty well. The problem is there isn’t nearly as many high-end caliber D1 LDS kids and the ones BYU is getting are mission bound, so it takes two years for them to even get in the program.

Pope has taken some big swings in the portal and ultimately missed. BYU was firmly in the mix for guys like Antoine Davis, Izaiah Brockington, Cam Shelton, Jordan Goldwire, and several others but couldn’t seal the deal.

BYU’s plan B and C guys the last two seasons haven’t worked out well enough. BYU got All-Conference guys the first two years from the portal, but none of the additions the last two years have been All-Conference. There have been some solid players, but not enough true difference makers.

This is where I think Pope can improve. He goes after all the top guys and shoots for the moon, but BYU’s talent evaluation can improve when they move on to the plan B and C players. Mark Madsen, for example, has done a nice job of that at UVU of this.

BYU will have two things going for it this next portal cycle: The Big 12 and Kahil Fennell. The 12 may have got some of those big players over the hump in the past, and it will no doubt help moving forward. 70+ other schools are also P6, so it’s not the end all be all. For Fennell, this will be his first full offseason recruiting in the portal for BYU. Having a non-LDS, racial minority on the staff will help recruiting.

Forcing out Connor Harding and essentially trading him for Seneca Knight was a mistake

Mark Pope will not be fired. BYU had a disappointing year, but he’s had good success at BYU at this last team was still top 75 nationally (out of 363 D1 teams). This isn’t a Louisville situation where they finished 4-27.

However, I would not be surprised if Pope sniffs around and takes calls from other schools.

Pope will outwork anyone on the recruiting trail, and in the back of his mind I believe he believes he would’ve got certain recruits if he was at another school.

In my opinion, building a roster at BYU in hoops is more difficult than football. Football has a larger built-in recruiting base with Polynesians, and lately there have been better LDS football players. For non-LDS players in football, they have 100+ other teammates they can rely on to have a community. In basketball, non-LDS players can feel more isolated. You only have 15 other teammates, and 6 of them could be married. It can be a lot more lonely for those players at BYU.

Braeden Moore redshirted, and I would not be surprised if he moved on.

This one gets me. Moore was a 3/4 star recruit and he can't get playing time over walk-on Christensen? A 3.5 star recruit should not leave the program without at least seeing the court unless he has just been horrible in practices.