BYU Firmly on the Bubble in Latest Bracket Projections
After losing four consecutive games in January, the BYU men's basketball team slid from a NCAA Tournament lock to a team on the bubble. BYU kept its NCAA Tournament hopes alive last week with two road victories over LMU and Pacific. This week, the Cougars will travel to Moraga to take on Saint Mary's in one of the most important games of the season.
Ahead of BYU's road game against the Gaels, here are the latest NCAA Tournament projections for the Cougars.
ESPN's Joe Lunardi, the industry leader in projecting the NCAA tournament field, has BYU as one of the last four teams in the field. Lundardi projects BYU as a #11 seed that would face #11 Iowa State in a play-in game.
Kevin Sweeney - Sports Illustrated
Like Lunardi, SI's Kevin Sweeney has BYU as one of the last four teams in. In Sweeney's projections, BYU would face #12 Memphis in a play-in game. The winner would take on #5 Michigan State in the round of 64.
Jerry Palm is more bullish on the Cougars than Lunardi and Sweeney. Palm put BYU as a #10 seed in his latest projections against #7 Colorado State.
Bracket Matrix is a website that compiles all NCAA Tournament projections on the internet. Of the 110 brackets that Bracket Matrix compiles, BYU was included in 91/110 of them (83%). BYU's average seed was 11.23.
The above projections highlight the importance of BYU's game against Saint Mary's this week. With a win over Saint Mary's this week, BYU fans could start to feel confident in the Cougars' chances of making the NCAA Tournament field. With a loss against Saint Mary's, BYU would probably need to string together a few wins in the WCC Tournament to make the cut.
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