Lesson number one that we’ve learned over the enlightened years of basketball analytics is that hoops is a game of possessions. Keeping possession, extending possessions, ending opponents’ possessions and making the most of every last possession can be the difference between a win and a loss. Maximizing your possessions makes all the difference. When the Selection Committee sits down to discuss the NCAA Tournament fates of teams around the country this week, a single possession otherwise forgotten to history may well be the difference between a dance and a disappointment.
Enter BYU. As the Cougars faded down the stretch against Gonzaga in the WCC Championship game last night in Las Vegas, the discussion turned to their NCAA Tournament resume: an RPI of 38; a big win at Gonzaga on the final weekend of the season; not a whole lot else. Dig a little deeper and you find that they played San Diego State to double-overtime on a neutral court and then two nights later played Purdue to a single-overtime on that same neutral court. Later in their non-conference slate, BYU lost at home to Utah by four points. Any one of those wins – three losses decided by four total possessions – could have been the difference between the Cougars leaving Orleans Arena on Tuesday night confident about their NCAA Tournament hopes or, as they actually did, mourning their way through a postgame press conference. Another few dashes of salt for that BYU wound – their four WCC losses came by a total of 27 points, with only their loss to Gonzaga in Provo coming by more than two possessions.
Maybe in a conference room in Indianapolis the 10 members of the Selection Committee have looked at BYU’s close losses and given them the benefit of the doubt. There’s still a chance (though not a particularly good one) that when bids are announced on Sunday, the Cougars will wind up with a date to dance – perhaps the First Four is a good landing spot for them. Regardless, BYU’s 2014-15 season is a good reminder of how every game in this long and convoluted season does in fact matter. Maybe it was a no-call on an Aqeel Quinn travel late in the San Diego State game that did them in. Maybe it was Kyle Collinsworth’s missed runner a possession later. Maybe it was some otherwise innocuous moving screen or a failure to block out a rebounder in that game, or the one two nights later. But it is not out of the realm of possibility that one little play that 99.9 percent of college basketball fans have long since forgotten turns out to be the deciding factor between the Cougars hearing their name called on Selection Sunday or hearing the NIT ask them to host a game instead. Possessions.