The question arises during Championship Week: whom do I want to win? Well, first off, cheer for your own team. Duh. If you are a bubble team, you cheer against the other bubble teams and for "locks" to win their conference tournaments. If you are securely in the field, as BYU is, you cheer against the teams that you are fighting for when it comes to seeding. Obviously, BYU needs to take care of business, i.e. advance to the MWC Tournament Finals at least, if not win the whole thing. But if they do that, how does the rest of it go and who are the teams involved?
Well, today, Nebraska knocked off Mizzou: double-good for BYU. First, with a deep run in the Big 12 Tournament, Mizzou might have jumped ahead of BYU when it comes to seeding. Second, this is the same Nebraska team that BYU throttled in a neutral-site tournament by 22. The fact that it was a 15-point win for Nebraska is all the better.
BYU fans definitely want teams that they played to do well: Weber State is in their conference tournament final, Utah State is the 1-seed in the WAC Tourney with Nevada as the 2 (a final between them would be great for BYU), Arizona and Arizona State could make runs in the Pac 10, and UTEP taking the C-USA Tournament would likewise be positive.
On the flip side, there are teams that BYU fans should want to make early exits in their conference tournament, as BYU is likely fighting with them for seeding:
Maryland, Michigan State, Temple, Georgetown (definitely don't want them to beat Syracuse tomorrow!), Texas A&M (they play Nebraska then KU, a loss to Nebraska would be great), Tennessee and Vandy (good for BYU, potentially bad for SDSU/MWC since they play "bubble" teams in their tournaments), Wisconsin (same deal, play a bubble team in the first round, good for BYU equals bad for MWC), Texas, and Xavier. Barring deep runs by Florida State and Clemson in the ACC, BYU shouldn't worry about being passed by anybody else.
If BYU bows out early or in the semis to home-standing UNLV, it may not matter anyway. But still, if you want to have a reason to care about some of these non-MWC, non-BYU games, I've given you some teams to cheer for and against. Go Weber State!
Good information. I didn't think we played Weber State this year.
ReplyDeleteYes, BYU played and clobbered Weber State. Did you watch their game? It was one of the worst-coached games I have seen. Montana's best player scored their last TWENTY points, and I don't recall anybody else even taking a shot in the last 7 minutes, and they were still guarding him one-on-one, no doubles, no attempt to get the ball out of his hands: every time he gave the ball up, Montana turned it over. Plus, they never handled the press (they were walking around after made baskets letting Montana set up the press), they never attacked the zone, they just sat outside and hucked up threes or drove into the lane at the end of the shot clock and got blocked. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Give Montana (slash Anthony Johnson) credit for winning the game, but it would not have been possible if Weber had actually made an attempt to win instead of playing not to lose.
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