BYU Basketball: Player Rankings For Week of Jan. 22nd-28th Sizing up the BYU Basketball roster with 10 games left. Who’s trending (…)
BYU Basketball: Player Rankings For Week of Jan. 22nd-28th
Sizing up the BYU Basketball roster with 10 games left.
Who’s trending up, down, or staying steady?
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The BYU Basketball team is heading into the home stretch of the season. Crazy thought huh? But yes, the Cougar Cagers only have 10 games left in the regular season before a trip to Vegas for the West Coast Conference Tournament.
BYU currently sits at 17-4 overall with a 6-2 record in the West Coast Conference, which puts them in sole possession of third place in the conference standings.
Who are the players playing well, who’s steady, on the rise, or trending down? Since BYU Wire launched less than a week ago, this is the first-ever BYU Basketball Player Ranking of the season, but we will make this a weekly feature on Monday’s through the remainder of the season.
#1 Elijah Bryant
Just another ho-hum week for everyone’s favorite vlogger, Eli Bryant. The junior guard averaged 21 points, seven rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1.5 steals in the Cougars two wins this past week.
Bryant has been excellent this season and he’s nearly in the top-10 of every major advanced statistic during WCC play. Everyone knew Eli was good, but not this good. He has been BYU’s best player this season and he is continuing to trend up.
#2 Yoeli Childs
The Cougars 1-2 punch continues to deliver. How far can Yoeli and Eli take this time is a big question, but Childs has been excellent. Statistically, not as good as Eric Mika a season ago. I would argue he’s been more efficient. Currently, Childs is No. 1 in WCC play in fouls drawn per 40 minutes. Childs has been shooting 60% from the free throw line in the league. If he can bump that number up, his stats across the board will continue to climb.
Whether the stats improve or not, Childs is a great athlete and we’ve seen that countless times including this past week with an acrobatic block against LMU.
#3 T.J. Haws
For fans and spectators, the narrative surrounding T.J. Haws is, welcome back! The thing is, he never left. According to Dave Rose, Haws has been a better all-around player this season than where he was a year ago. But it was good to see Haws perform on the offensive end like he is known to do. Maybe it’s those black shoes he’s rocking, that was the key. Gotta be the shoes.
#4 Jahshire Hardnett
Career highs in points, rebounds, and blocks against San Diego on Saturday night. Hardnett has had a bigger impact on this team than anyone could’ve predicted entering the season. The exciting thing for BYU is that the Cougars have Hardnett for another two seasons after this one. He’s only gaining more confidence and getting better as the games go by.
#5 Zac Seljaas
The sophomore slump is the easy term to pull from to describe Seljaas this season, but it’s more than that. Returning home early from a mission and still recovering from shoulder surgery, teams know Seljaas’ strengths as a player. He has to find new ones to attack and create his shot. He’s been a huge boost though to the Cougar offense after he was inserted into the starting lineup. The spacing and the timing of the offense have executed at a much higher level.
#6 McKay Cannon
Cannon set the world on the fire in his first two games as a Cougar and has now slowed down a little bit, going scoreless in the last outing against San Diego in 15 minutes. Offensively, Cannon is BYU’s best option off the bench at the moment. But that’s not saying a whole lot as the Cougars are really thin. Cannon will need to perform well in Moraga if BYU hopes to pull off the upset.
#7 Dalton Nixon
Dalton Nixon returning to action is a big boost for this BYU team that desperately needs him to get back to 100-percent. Team doctors are currently limiting him to eight to 10 minutes. Monday’s practice will tell a lot about if he will be available again this Thursday night. When healthy, Nixon could be one of the best defenders on this team. An athletic two-way player who has a smooth stroke when he’s on.
#8 Luke Worthington
Worthington’s role is more off-the-court with this team. He will provide a bucket or two here and there, but his leadership and maturity in the locker room are why he was named as a captain, and guys like Heath Schroyer love him. I mean, you’re not going to call a kid “Lukey” unless you really like him. That’s what Schroyer does.
#9 Rylan Bergersen
Rose has expressed he wants to give Bergersen more minutes moving forward. Hard to create that opportunity though right now in the middle of a conference championship race for a guy that has played a total of 58 minutes this season.
#10 Payton Dastrup
Dastrup has returned to being the team’s bench mob guy. Right move, bad move? I’d say the latter. But Rose has said that Dastrup’s role is diminishing on this team and it showed on Saturday night against San Diego as Dastrup only played one minute against the Toreros.
#11 Kolby Lee
Lee will be redshirting this season. According to McKay Cannon, Lee has brought a welcomed intensity to practice that was sorely needed as BYU has been turning to walk-on tryout players in practice far too much this year.
#12 Ryan Andrus & Braiden Shaw
Both Andrus and Shaw are out for the remainder of the year and they will both exhaust a redshirt season.
