KenPom Rates BYU Basketball Entering First Big 12 Season
Oct 15, 2023, 4:20 PM | Updated: 4:26 pm
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The preseason KenPom ratings are out for the 2023-24 season. It’s an early Christmas gift for hoop heads when Ken Pomeroy drops his ratings for a new season.
The 2023-24 college basketball season brings a lot of change, including programs like BYU in a new conference.
BYU basketball is gearing up for its first season in the Big 12 Conference. They are joining the toughest league in America alongside UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston.
BYU basketball is eighth in the Big 12 on Ken Pomeroy’s ratings
BYU is coming off a 19-win campaign last year in its final season in the West Coast Conference. That low win total has caused many to forecast BYU near the bottom of the 14-team Big 12.
BYU checked in at No. 13 in the preseason Big 12 poll.
KenPom has a much more optimistic outlook on the Cougars.
In KenPom’s preseason predictive ratings, he has BYU at No. 36 nationally. But where does that rank in the Big 12? That No. 36 rating places BYU as the eighth-highest Big 12.
KenPom has BYU in front of Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Cincinnati, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, and UCF.
All 14 of the Big 12 teams rate in the top 75 of KenPom’s ratings entering the 2023-24 season.
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The preseason metrics don’t always play out the way KenPom envisions entering a season. Last year, BYU was No. 44 in the preseason ratings from Pomeroy and finished No. 77.
That’s a big difference from BYU’s old conference, the West Coast Conference. Entering this season in the WCC, only two teams from that league are rated above the Big 12’s lowest-rated team, UCF (72). Those two teams? You guessed it, Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s.
BYU faces a top-75 team in the Big 12 every night. It’s a new era indeed.
BYU coach Mark Pope, entering his fifth season on the Cougars bench, has said it takes 10 games for predictive ratings like KenPom to settle in and get a true ranking of how teams stack up this year.
KenPom ratings for Big 12 Basketball entering 2023-24 season
As of October 15, 2023
Kansas (2)
Houston (3)
Baylor (7)
Texas (16)
Kansas State (25)
TCU (30)
Iowa State (31)
BYU (36)
Texas Tech (43)
Oklahoma (48)
Cincinnati (53)
West Virginia (64)
Oklahoma State (68)
UCF (72)
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X and Threads: @Mitch_Harper.
