Last November I posted nine predictions about the 2012-13 BYU basketball season. Here are the predictions and some commentary on the actual results:
1. BYU will win 25-30 games.
Actual: BYU finished the regular season with just 21 wins but a nice little run in the NIT brought the total wins up to 24. Not bad, but short of that 25+ wins mark BYU has become accustomed to.
2. BYU will place second or first in the WCC regular season.
Actual: BYU came in a distant third in the WCC standings. The Dellavadagger ended BYU's hopes of really competing for a top 2 spot this year.
3. Brandon Davies will average 20+ points per game.
Actual: Davies averaged an impressive 17.7 pts per game despite battling an ankle injury. In retrospect, predicting a 20+ point average was asking too much. Very few players pull that off.
4. Tyler Haws will average 15+ points per game.
Actual: This is one of the few cases where I was not overly optimistic. Haws actually averaged 21.7 points per game and was one of the top scorers in the country. Kid gets buckets.
5. Three BYU players will be named to All-WCC teams after the season.
Actual: Haws and Davies made the All-WCC team. Carlino, with his up and down season, didn't.
6. BYU will average 38%+ from three and 48%+ from the field overall.
Actual: This was the key to my overall prediction failures this year. I really thought this would be a team of sharpshooters and they just weren't. The team ended up shooting a passable 45.7% from the field but a meager 33.8% from three. In Dave Rose's offense BYU must hit threes at a better clip than that to be good.
7. BYU will win its way into the finals of the WCC tourney.
Actual: BYU fell in the quarterfinals to USD. Not perdy.
8. BYU will get a 5-8 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Actual: Not.
9. BYU will advance at least to the field of 32 in the Big Dance.
Actual: Final Four! (of the NIT)
In retrospect it is clear that I overestimated the shooting prowess of this BYU team. I thought BYU had a bunch of highly accurate three point shooters but that didn't pan out. One of the big questions for next season will be be if BYU can figure out how to hit a higher percentage of their threes. If the Cougs can, I'll expect a return to contention in the WCC, a 25+ win season, and a return to the big dance. If the shooting from three doesn't improve we might be looking at a repeat of this season.
What say you, Cougar fans?