Predictions for BYU in Big Dance are all over the board – Deseret News

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Predictions for BYU in Big Dance are all over the board – Deseret News

In his NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament bracket released Monday, Michael Cohen of Fox Sports predicts that whichever team emerges from Tuesday’s First Four game in Dayton, Texas or North Carolina State, will beat No. 6 seed BYU in a first-round game in Portland on Thursday.

“Biggest first-round upset,” Cohen says, along with No. 11 South Florida over No. 6 Louisville in the East Region.

In the same article, former college and NBA player Casey Jacobsen, now a studio host and game analyst for the network, picks BYU to knock off the No. 11 seed, then beat Gonzaga and Miami and make it to the Elite Eight against Arizona in the West Region.

Then there’s this headline on the NBC Sports website: “BYU is in trouble.”

In that podcast featuring Vaughn Dalzell, Nicolle Auerbach and John Fanta, Dalzell says the following:

“I am looking at a six seed who is going to lose no matter who they play as the 11 seed. That’s the BYU Cougars. I have waited all year to fade this team in March. This is the third-worst-rated defense in the Big 12,” Dalzell says. “I love AJ Dybantsa. He’s going to be a top-two pick in the NBA draft. But he cannot do it all himself. Once they had a few injuries (to Dawson Baker, Richie Saunders), they just looked like a totally different team.

“We are talking about a team that allows 40% from 3 in Big 12 play, only forces a turnover 13% of the time. If you can run on them, you can beat them. If you can slow them down, you can beat them,” Dalzell continued. “Texas or NC State, they should be thrilled they are in this First Four matchup, because whoever plays BYU is going to beat BYU, in my opinion.”

The Cougars (23-11) will face the Texas-NC State winner Thursday (5:25 p.m. MDT, TBS) at Moda Center in Portland, with the winner of that game facing the Gonzaga-Kennesaw State winner Saturday.

The point is that predictions for BYU among national analysts are all over the board, but most so-called experts have low expectations for coach Kevin Young’s team, which surprised most folks last year as a No. 6 seed by making it to the Sweet 16 before it lost hard to Alabama.

In one article alone, Cameron Salerno of CBS Sports says that BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, who leads the country in scoring with a 25.3 average, could be the difference — or not.

“The most electrifying player in this (West) region may belong to No. 6 seed BYU. Freshman star AJ Dybantsa, the nation’s leading scorer and a potential No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA draft, is capable of carrying the Cougars on the type of March heater that can turn a region upside down,” Salerno writes.

But then, this: “BYU made a run to the Sweet 16 last year, and expectations are even higher this season with Dybantsa on the roster. BYU could be on upset alert here against either the Longhorns or the Wolfpack — coaches Sean Miller (Texas) and Will Wade (NC State) are two of the best in the game.”

Both Texas (18-14) and NC State (20-13) have struggled recently, but on ESPN’s post-selection show Sunday night, analyst Seth Greenberg predicted that Tuesday’s winner would knock off BYU because of superior size and talent.

Until last year, the theory existed that BYU did not play well in March Madness, for whatever reason. But the Cougars, who will be making their 33rd appearance, improved their overall Big Dance record to 17-35, and 5-4 as a No. 6 seed.

The Cougars defeated a single-digit seed — No. 3 Wisconsin — 91-89 in Denver for the first time since they upset No. 7 seed Virginia 61-48 in Salt Lake City in Shawn Bradley’s only season in Provo.

Can AJ Dybantsa carry the Cougars in 2026?

Whatever the analysts say and write, the bottom line for BYU is that it will most likely depend on what kind of tournament Dybantsa has. He was mostly spectacular in BYU’s three games at the Big 12 tournament, scoring a single-tournament record 93 points in wins over Kansas State and West Virginia and a loss to No. 2 seed Houston.

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Dybantsa said in Kansas City when he was asked if that is possible. “I can, if you want to say that, but I mean, it takes a team to win. If they need me to be that leading guy, or whatever it takes, then I can do that.”

Dybantsa said the team’s resiliency and perseverance after its second-best player, Saunders, sustained a season-ending ACL injury during the first possession of the overtime win over Colorado, will serve it well in Portland.

“We beat two top-10 teams (Iowa State and Texas Tech) and we were within two possessions of beating (Arizona and Houston),” he said. “So we proved to ourselves that we are able to compete with the best. We just gotta finish out games.”

Dybantsa said a lot of teams would have folded after suffering a three-game losing skid, “but we are resilient and we persevere.”

Point guard Rob Wright said after the 73-66 loss to Houston that the team has been “galvanized” by the adversity and emergence of key defenders such as Dominique Diomande and Khadim Mboup and is ready to make a run.

“Yeah, we have the utmost confidence now,” said Wright, who helped No. 9 seed Baylor go 1-1 in the tournament last year, a win over Mississippi State before a loss to Duke. “We’ve been fighting with some really good teams. The Big 12 (schedule) has prepared us. … So just for us to be in the game (against Houston) and figure out our identity, I think that’s huge for us.”

In the latest AP Top 25 poll released Monday, BYU remained unranked despite the stellar showing in Kansas City. The Cougars received 62 points from voters and would be at No. 27 if the survey extended that far. BYU enters the dance sitting at No. 23 in both the NET rankings and KenPom.

Another big question is how referees will officiate Dybantsa, who at times hunts for foul calls and puts a lot of pressure on the zebras to make snap decisions.

After BYU’s loss to Houston in which Dybantsa was awarded only two free throws in the second half, Young said publicly that the star freshman should have attempted 20 free throws and scored 40 points, instead of 10 attempts and 26 points.

In an interview on BYUtv’s “BYU Sports Nation” on Monday, Young said he is “not asking for anything special with AJ,” but wants the officials to call what they see and not consider his special talent.

“I won’t name the name, but a longtime college head coach said to me, ‘You know, one thing that you might say to the officials is don’t penalize him for being a great player,’” Young said. “Sometimes it’s like, oh, he can get through that contact. So just call what you see.”

Is a Final Four run, finally, still in the cards?

Only 19 other schools have made more NCAA Tournament appearances than BYU (33), which is remarkable considering that the Cougars have only been in a power conference for three seasons. Still, the fact that BYU has the dubious distinction — or admirable consistency, depending on one’s perspective — of most appearances without making it to the Final Four will invariably be brought up once the Cougars are eliminated.

Before drawing too much blood from all the self-flagellation about BYU having the most NCAA appearances without a Final Four — just keep in mind that 346 out of 365 D1 schools have been too crappy to even have enough NCAA appearances to challenge BYU for that distinction.

— CougarStats (@CougarStats) March 16, 2026

BYU’s best finish was in 1981, when Danny Ainge led the Cougars to the Elite Eight. It will be BYU’s third-straight appearance in the NCAAs. Since the tournament was expanded in 1980, BYU’s longest gaps between appearances were six years — from 1995 to 2001 and then from 2015 to 2021 (BYU would have earned a bid in 2020, but the tournament was canceled due to the pandemic).

Can the Cougars make history?

“I know we’re playing our best ball at the right time of the year,” Young said Monday.

Certainly, the Cougars’ turnaround since losing to two non-tournament teams — West Virginia and Cincinnati — on the road a few weeks ago have fueled the hopes in Provo and throughout the country. Young said he expects Moda Center “to be packed with blue” like Denver’s Ball Arena was last year.

“It is just a good group of guys. They care about each other. We’ve had some stuff that guys have had to work through collectively, with the injuries and a couple losing streaks, and nobody blinked, nobody batted an eye,” Young said. “We just stayed with it. We’ve gotten some momentum at the right time. … A lot of it is based on us simplifying things and really holding the guys accountable to just do it harder, longer, stronger, faster. And they galvanized themselves around that. We just have a really confident locker room right now that feels like we’re playing our best ball, which is what you what you want to be doing.”