Who would have thought that BYU would be in contention for a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament? Who would have thought that they would currently be ranked no. 3 in the country right now? I think it's absurd. Look at their conference, the MAC.
Who have they beaten that is actually good? Don't tell me San Diego State because they're overrated too. SDSU is in the same situation, except they lost to the best team in the MAC, which is BYU.
Next to UNLV and SDSU, BYU is the only team in the MAC with a winning conference record. Plus, when BYU has lost, look who it was to. They've lost convincingly to UCLA and the University of New Mexico, both of which are unranked.
Here's a list of the out of conference teams BYU has defeated, as well as their current record and ranking if applicable: Fresno State (13-15, 5-9 WAC), #21 Utah State (26-3, 13-1 WAC), Chicago State (6-23, Independent), Mississippi Valley State (11-18, 10-6 SWAC), South Florida (9-20, 3-13 Big East), Saint Mary's (23-7, 11-3 WCC), Creighton (18-13, 10-8 MVC), Hawaii (17-10, 7-7 WAC), Vermont (22-7, 13-3 Am. East), #18 Arizona (23-6, 12-4 Pac-10), UCLA (21-8, 12-4 Pac-10), Weber State (17-10, 11-4 Big Sky), UTEP (21-8, 9-5 C-USA), Buffalo (16-11, 7-7 MAC), and last but not least Fresno Pacific. Who? Exactly. ESPN doesn't even have a picture as to who their mascot is, like it does for I would assume every other team. Apparently they only played a schedule of 2 games in which they lost both, but are still listed at (0-0). They're not even listed in a conference. Check it out for yourself:
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/_/id/2235/fresno-pacific-sunbirds
But back to my main point. Who has BYU beaten? Their conference hasn't provided enough challenge for them, nor have the rest of their opponents. Wins over now ranked Utah State and Arizona are hardly worthy of a no. 1 seed in the tournament, let alone being ranked 3rd in the country. And I've already addressed how I feel about San Diego State.
Just to be clear I'm not knocking any players on BYU, especially the spectacular Jimmer Fredette. BYU is a good team, but I don't think they're a legitimate contender for a national championship and won't make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament that would be expected of a no. 1 seed. We'll have to wait and see.
I completely disagree BYU so deserves a number 1 I mean look at last year with Butler who made it all the way to the national championship and nearly won. I think BYU and San Diego St can definitely make long runs in the NCAA tournament and are defiantly not a team to look over
ReplyDeleteThat is true, but would you really place BYU as one of the top teams in the nation? For me I think that Pitt., Duke, Kansas, or Texas should rank above BYU. Despite each team's losses I think they're better contenders than BYU or SDSU. Especially Pitt. coming out of a very strong Big East Conference. They're one of my favorites for when brackets come out as long as they keep playing the way they do. St. John's hasn't been successful enough away from home to convince me they're a better overall team than Pitt. so I don't find that loss too demeaning. Although you can arguably say they're playing the best basketball in the Big East as of late.
ReplyDeleteAnd Butler was a 5 seed last year in a similar scheduling situation and conference competitiveness as BYU is in this year.
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