Checking in on the WCC Men's Basketball Standings

The Cougars are climbing the standings are two home wins last week

After suffering a home loss to Saint Mary's at the buzzer, the BYU men's basketball team bounced back with two dominant wins over Loyola Marymount and Pacific last week. Now, BYU is climbing the conference standings after dropping to as low as seventh following the loss to the Gaels. Today, let's check in on the WCC men's basketball standings to see where BYU stands with five conference games remaining.

WCC Men's Basketball Standings (As of 2/6/23)

Team	Conference Record	Overall Record
Saint Mary's	10-0	21-4
Gonzaga	8-2	19-5
LMU	6-5	16-9
BYU	6-5	16-10
Santa Clara	5-5	17-8
Pacific	5-5	12-13
San Francisco	4-7	15-11
Portland	4-7	12-14
San Diego	4-7	11-14
Pepperdine	1-10	8-17

As of this article, BYU is tied for third place in the WCC with five games to go. The WCC standings are divided into four groups:

1. Saint Mary's and Gonzaga with a big lead ahead of the rest of the conference
2. LMU, BYU, Santa Clara, and Pacific fighting for third place
3. San Francisco, Portland, San Diego falling behind
4. Pepperdine in last place by a wide margin

The Race for Third Place

LMU and BYU are currently tied for third place in the WCC while Santa Clara and Pacific are just a half-game behind. Here is an outlook at the race for third place in the WCC.

Remaining Schedules

LMU: vs Saint Mary's, @ Santa Clara, vs Gonzaga, vs Pacific, @ Pepperdine

BYU: @ Pepperdine, @ Gonzaga, vs Santa Clara, @ Saint Mary's, vs San Francisco

Santa Clara: vs San Diego, vs LMU, @ BYU, vs Pepperdine, @ San Diego

Pacific: @ Portland, vs San Diego, vs San Francisco, @ LMU, @ Saint Mary's, vs Portland

A few things stand out when you look at the remaining schedules:

1. Only BYU and LMU still have to play Saint Mary's and Gonzaga
2. Santa Clara has the easiest remaining schedule; according to KenPom, Santa Clara is favored to win every game except the game at BYU

Projected Finish (KenPom)

Using KenPom's predictive analytics, the four above teams are projected to finish with the following records behind Saint Mary's and Gonzaga:

Santa Clara: 8.9-7.1 (Third place)

BYU: 8.41-7.59 (Fourth place)

LMU: 8.29-7.71 (Fifth place)

Pacific: 7.13-8.87 (Sixth place)

In this scenario, BYU would finish fourth in the WCC regular season standings. The outlook completely changes for the Cougars if they can steal a game on the road at Gonzaga or Saint Mary's.

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