BYU Brackets heading to Arizona

Robbie McCombs does his normal excellent job…
Though nothing really new…KY needs to have his boys win on the road and hold serve at home…three game losing stretch getting used to the B12 is still hurting the team’s resume. The weak non-conference schedule is hurting the team’s resume too.

B12 weak non-conference scheduling is one of the two major reasons the SEC is ahead of the B12 statistically. The other is of course that the teams who did play a reasonable out of conference schedule did not dominate as they normally do. B12 needs to smoke the NCAA tournament, especially against SEC teams, to get back to parity, put ESPN’s SEC bias back in proper perspective.

I like Bart Torvik’s site, mostly quite close to Kenpom, but it has the ability to narrow down to certain dates.
T-Rank - Customizable College Basketball Tempo Free Stats - T-Rank

Shows where BYU sits in conference only during the Conference season: yes he puts the thumb more on current results than Kenpom does…which in the Tommy Lloyd v KY, puts the AZ BYU comparison closer than most of the metric’s gurus.

2024-2025 NCAA BB Games: Cougars Wildcats Matchup Stats -

The teams are incredibly close…doesn’t break down by conference though another page has last ten which is essentially for the BYU-Utah game forward, meaning something close to the reality of what KY has his team playing right now.
AZ has home advantage and defence advantage.
If Catchings could show up hot like against Baylor…but he was 1/5 on threes at home…Miya is still showing Catchings as one of the best defenders on the team…clearly not the psych or experience of Mowat…nor Boskovitch.

BYU has jumped from the bubble to a 7 seed in less then a week. No team is hotter in all sports.

Trap game at ASU…two big wins, beat down in Provo, ASU absolutely tanking in conference. lots of season goals in the bag seemingly, but if Ky’s boys, do what Sitake’s boys did, giving away games that should not have been given away…bad results ensue and not just on the court.

ASU soundly defeated KSU on the road yesterday. They are fully capable of pulling off the upset.

Their leading scorer apparently left the team prior to the KSU game. Don’t know the story behind that. ASU had lost 6 straight and wins a road game without their leading scorer. Go figure!

Freeman had been suspended twice and Hurley just got tired of his crap…Yes, ASU can beat anyone at home but I think BYU is locked in and with our fire power, we should go get another road win.

Cannot relax. The great thing going on is that we are playing 11 players consistently. They are all mostly contributing.

A lot of times it’s about matchups. It may have been more on KSU than ASU for their loss.

BJ Freeman no longer with Arizona State due to detrimental conduct - ESPN

Sometimes a team is better off without guys like Freeman and they come together after getting rid of the bad actor. Hurley obviously didn’t think he was worth the drama and disruption.

Seen that a lot over the years, current example in the NBA is Russell Westbrook, been on Six teams, last a couple of years (except OKC) and the baggage he has, causes a rif…

He is a great player, just can’t get along with people.

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There was a great player in the major leagues back in the 60s who was traded constantly. His name was Dyck Allen. He was as good as anybody in the game for about 8-10 years but he couldn’t get along with anybody so he kept getting traded. He finally got voted into the Hall of Fame this last year, several years after his death. He was a great player but the sports writers who vote in the HOF elections didn’t like him. I guess the voters on the Veterans Committee finally decided he was too good to be left out. Too bad he had personality issues and couldn’t enjoy the honor while he was alive.

Some guys have all the talent in the world but are disruptive to team cohesion.

His name really wasn’t spelled Dyck but the censors wouldn’t let me use the actual spelling. Just substitute I for y. Early in his career he was called Richie Allen, but he hated Richie and he finally got people to call him Dyck.

He was a great player. I remember him.

BYU wary of shorthanded Arizona State ahead of Wednesday’s tilt – Deseret News

Their Fr. Center, Quaintance left the KS game on crutches. BYU’s length should cause ASU problems. There best players, Mason and Miller run 6’2 and 6’3. Make ASU beat BYU inside, don’t let them get open looks.

BYU keeps ASU under 70.