With roughly a month left in the NCAA regular season, all eyes will be on Kansas and BYU as the Jayhawks’ Darryn Peterson and the Cougars’ AJ Dybantsa battle for the right to be the No. 1 pick in next summer’s NBA Draft.
Dybantsa will get yet another chance to showcase his skills when No. 22 BYU (18-6, 6-5 Big 12) hosts Colorado (14-11, 4-8 Big 12) at 4 p.m. ET.
The Cougars are 14.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-1450 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 163.5. The Buffaloes are +850 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down this Mountain Time Zone matchup.
Colorado vs. BYU (4:00 p.m. ET)
After a hot start to the season, BYU has slowed down somewhat as of late. In fact, before a much-needed 99-94 win over Baylor on Tuesday, the Cougars had lost five of their last six games, though their opponents — No. 15 Texas Tech, No. 1 Arizona, No. 14 Kansas, Oklahoma State, and No. 8 Houston — were about as difficult as can be. Though BYU only has one win over a ranked opponent this season, going 12-1 in non-conference play is impressive regardless, and its 87th-ranked non-conference strength of schedule was among the top quartile in Division I. The Cougars have been dominant offensively, ranking fourth in KenPom’s ORTG.
That’s not a surprise given that Dybantsa leads the nation with 24.5 points per game, having scored 36 points in two of his last three games. He’s also contributed in other ways, adding 6.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game, and his shooting splits (54.9% from the field and 37.2% from beyond the arc) are pretty impressive for a freshman. He’s not alone, though: Richie Saunders is averaging 18.8 points and 1.8 steals per game, and Robert Wright III has averaged 17.9 points per game. Both Wright and Dawson Baker have nailed more than 40% of their three-pointers.
Colorado is also in poor recent form. The Buffaloes have lost eight of their last 10 games, including a 34-point defeat against Texas Tech on Wednesday, and while they also swept some of their early non-conference schedule, they didn’t face any difficult opponents. All in all, Colorado’s most impressive result of the season was likely its two-point defeat to the Red Raiders on January 10. The Buffaloes’ offense is okay, as they rank 54th in ORTG, but they rank just 148th in DRTG and have faced a pretty easy schedule, especially out-of-conference.
As compared to BYU, Colorado has had a fairly egalitarian offensive approach, with four different players averaging at least 10 points per game. The issues is that its players aren’t very well-rounded: the Buffaloes’ leading scorer, Isaiah Johnson (16.1 PPG), doesn’t do much besides score, and leading rebounder Bangot Dak has shot the ball pretty inefficiently. Colorado does have one of the country’s premier snipers in Barrington Hargress, who’s made 48.6% of his three-pointers, but its depth just isn’t as strong as the Cougars’.
College basketball can depend heavily on three-point shooting, and BYU has been better in that regard, ranking 97th in three-pointers made per game to the Buffaloes’ 252nd. Colorado has also struggled mightily to defend the three-point line, ranking just 344th in opponent three-point percentage. The Cougars have also been a top-50 rebounding team, with the Buffaloes outside the top 200. Without Colorado having the necessary counters for BYU’s play-style, I like a high-scoring Cougars cover in this one.
