Big 12 Basketball: Ranking all 16 programs after adding Arizona, ASU, Colorado and Utah

14. BYU

BYU has taken 30 trips to the NCAA Tournament during their proud history, but ancient history isn’t exactly what we’re thinking about today. The Cougars were a fantastic part of the Mountain West for over a decade before transitioning to the WCC back in 2011. Across the next 12 years, they were a constant second fiddle to Gonzaga, and sometimes even a third fiddle depending on Saint Mary’s.

There’s no shame in losing games to an elite program like Gonzaga, but if BYU can’t handle the Bulldogs, can we expect them to have regular success on the road (or at home) against programs like Baylor or Kansas? Even more disappointing, BYU actually finished below .500 in conference play last season, though this was the first time they’d done that since 2005.

This BYU program has appeared just once in the NCAA Tournament in the last eight years, settling for NIT bids and other disappointments along the way. Head coach Mark Pope had a down year last season but enters his fifth season as head coach of this program with higher hopes on the horizon. However, he’s now significantly overmatched by some of the elite head coaches in the Big 12.

This upcoming season will tell us a lot about the Cougars, but we’re not just thinking about the immediate future. Due to their LDS tradition, BYU is always going to have a slightly tougher time recruiting than the average school, though they haven’t let that stop them in the past from being a successful program. Can they grow into a contender in a significantly tougher Big 12?