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Apples and oranges.
As usually as we attempt, evaluating them is at all times fruitless.
The BYU males’s and girls’s basketball groups are flourishing subsequent to one another on the Marriott Heart. The boys are 35-3 in three seasons beneath head coach Mark Pope. The ladies have received 27 straight house video games beneath head coach Jeff Judkins.
Out within the market, nonetheless, they're very completely different.
The ladies
The 18-1 BYU girls stay No. 16 on this week’s AP Prime 25 — the best within the historical past of this system. They've additionally been ranked for 10 consecutive weeks — the longest in program historical past. The Cougars (7-0 in West Coast Convention) start a major highway swing Thursday at Portland (13-4, 3-2) and Saturday at second-place Gonzaga (16-4, 7-0).
Sophomore Shaylee Gonzales leads the WCC in scoring (18.5), senior Paisley Harding is shut behind at No. 5 (16.4), and sophomore Lauren Gustin is No. 1 in rebounding (12.3). The Cougars lead the league in scoring, rebounding, assists, 3-point taking pictures and victories.
They're overwhelming their opponents, beating the final 10 by a mean of 26.6 factors. Earlier than Saturday’s sport in opposition to USF, Dons coach Molly Goodenbour joked that the important thing to beating BYU was “not having their starters present up.”
Nicely, they confirmed up and beat USF 99-58.
The final time the BYU girls had been in a single-digit sport was of their solely lack of the season — 99-91 in additional time at Oklahoma on Dec. 10.
The boys
The BYU males (17-6, 5-3) had been knocking on the door of the highest 25 earlier than dropping highway video games final week at Santa Clara and Pacific. The losses whisked them off the nationwide radar and into fourth place within the WCC and from a “lock” to the ‘bubble’ for the NCAA Event.
If poorly managed, a basketball season, like a projected bumper crop, could be worn out by a three-day chilly spell. Nonetheless, it may also be revived by a scorching streak. The Cougars want a direct spring thaw going into house video games in opposition to San Francisco (17-5, 4-3) on Thursday and No. 2 Gonzaga (17-2, 6-0) Saturday night time.
Senior Alex Barcello is No. 4 within the WCC in scoring (16.9) and is No. 1 in 3-point-percentage (.465%). Senior Te’jon Lucas is No. 3 in assists (4.5 per sport) and freshman Fousseyni Traore is No. 3 in rebounding (8.3).
However in contrast to the ladies, the boys start February in a mad scramble to regroup, retool and rebound after final week’s unravelling.
Value of admission
It prices $25 to purchase a front-row ticket at middle courtroom to observe the ladies hoop it up on the Marriott Heart. Due to demand, the identical seat for a males’s sport is out there after a major donation to BYU and requires some hoop leaping by varied ranges of the Cougar Membership simply to get there. The ticket workplace did discover one open chair seat within the decrease bowl for Thursday’s sport in opposition to USF for $90.
Previous to Saturday’s win in opposition to the Dons, and for the primary time this season, the ladies had been handled to the identical pregame festivities as the boys.
The lights dipped, the music was turned up, and a 50-foot curtain dropped from the scoreboard.
The Cougars gasped with massive eyes and huge smiles as they watched their photos roll throughout the largest display of their lives. They had been lastly getting the “massive time” remedy in their very own facility.
The pep band belted out the struggle tune, whereas remnants of the ROC pupil part joined a season-high crowd (not together with youngsters’ day) of 1,648 and Harding’s 30-point efficiency stored them on their ft many of the afternoon.
The boys common simply over 15,000 followers and rank among the many high 10 nationally in attendance. The biggest crowd of the 12 months is predicted on Saturday in opposition to Gonzaga. Because it opened in 1971, the surroundings at a males’s sport has made the Marriott Heart a vacation spot for disappointment for lots of of groups.
Excessive expectations flank each applications, with the final word judgement across the nook. Identical to Kevin Bacon in “Footloose” these two groups simply wish to dance.
Postseason posturing
“Desire” is women’ selection and “Promenade” is boys’ selection. However relating to getting an invitation to the Large Dance — that’s a committee’s selection. They may weigh every program’s physique of labor, together with power of schedule and large wins versus devastating defeats.
The ladies have a lofty aim of reaching the Ultimate 4. On the tempo they're on, they will anticipate probably the most enticing invite in program historical past. The boys, after final week, are hoping to only get invited in any respect.
Apples and oranges have at all times had similarities and variations. Each are fruit and when in-season, they're scrumptious and simple to promote. However their make-up is exclusive from each other. Evaluating them is fruitless.
The BYU males’s and girls’s groups are nonetheless in-season, and each are having bumper crops, with every approaching 20 wins in opposition to difficult schedules. Nonetheless, comparisons as to which group is probably the most fruitful will probably be decided by the marketplace in March.
As for right now, one group is making the sale look simple, whereas the opposite has consumers scratching their heads.
Dave McCann is a contributor to the Deseret Information and is the studio host for “After Additional Evaluate,” co-host for “Countdown to Kickoff” and the “Postgame Present” and play-by-play announcer for BYUtv.