Big 12 Basketball: Introducing 4 new official members for 2023-24 season

BYU Cougars

The fourth new arrival to the Big 12 is the BYU Cougars who make the move after being in the West Coast Conference since 2011. Prior to moving to the WCC, the Cougars spent 12 years in the Mountain West where they made either the NIT or NCAA Tournament in all but one of those years. Once they moved to the WCC, they stayed the same dozen years with nine post-season appearances. BYU now, after years of battling Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s, moves to a conference with multiple national title contenders and a conference with two of the last three national champions.

Head coach Mark Pope enters his fifth season with the Cougars with an average record of 21-10 over his first four years, including a 24-8 and 13-3 conference record in 2020 when Covid shut down the season. Of the newcomers to the Big 12, it’s BYU that might be on the best position roster-wise in terms of returning players. Not only do they return their top scorer and rebounder Fousseyni Traore, but they also bring back double-digit scorer Spencer Johnson and a guy who could have a breakout year, 6’7 forward Jaxson Robinson. Pope didn’t stop there, also supplemented those with some key pick-ups in the transfer portal.

This group is led by a couple of guards that led their former teams in scoring. Dawson Baker led UC-Irvine at 15.3 per game and Ques Glover who netted 14.7 for the Samford Bulldogs. Add to them junior forward Aly Khalifa who did a little bit of everything for Charlotte last season averaging 11.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 2.7 assists.

These four additions will make every league game a battle that may look like year-end records are not reflective of the team’s abilities, and the gauntlet that is the Big 12 will just get better.