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LAS VEGAS — When given a chance to make a pitch for his team's inclusion in the NCAA Tournament by an ESPN reporter after Tuesday night's 74-54 loss to No. 6 Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference tournament final, BYU coach Dave Rose thought for a second.
Then he thought again.
"As far as the NCAA Tournament is concerned, I think we have a lot of people who are assigned to try to figure out who those 68 teams are," Rose said.
And while he didn't explicitly make a pitch for the Cougars, who finished the season at 24-10 and only one top-25 win (in Monday night's semifinals against No. 20 Saint Mary's), Rose offered an emotional recollection of the 2017-18 season — his 13th in charge at BYU.
"I know this team, and this team is full of character, it’s full of heart, and it’s been through quite an amazing season with the personnel challenges we had," Rose said.
He recalled playing the majority of the season with eight scholarship players. He recalled dealing with "personnel issues," such as the loss of former Lone Peak star Eric Mika to an Italian pro contract in the offseason or the withdrawal from school of Nick Emery amid an NCAA investigation and personal crisis surrounding his divorce.
He even mentioned injuries that derailed some seasons before they began, alluding to sophomore big Ryan Andrus, who was on the bench in street clothes after (finally) undergoing knee surgery in the final weeks of the season.
Even reserve post Braiden Shaw and surprise freshman Kolby Lee — who was so unlikely to play this season that the Cougars haven't assigned him a jersey number — were among the injured, appearing during BYU warmups all week limping within a walking boot.
But then Rose mentioned his group that kept playing ... and playing ... and playing. Of course, that's no excuse for losing 10 games.
There's no excuse for losing, team captain Elijah Bryant said.
“I don’t think there are any excuses for our loss,” Bryant said. “I think Gonzaga played a good game and we just weren’t able to hit shots.
“They hit more shots, and got the win.”
But for a brief moment, Rose offered a glimpse into the psyche of a BYU head coach.
"These guys kept fighting and believing in themselves and in each other," Rose said. "It's hard to win one game, let alone 24 games, in a season. I’ll go to battle with these guys any day."
Barring a surprise — even a miracle, some might say — BYU will likely receive an invitation to the National Invitation Tournament next Sunday, after all of the NCAA bids have been assigned.
It will be the Cougars' third-straight trip to the second-tier tournament, a significant detour from the days of Jimmer Fredette or Shawn Bradley or Danny Ainge, who sat in the Orleans Arena stands next to BYU associate athletic director Brian Santiago.
But it's the position BYU found itself in as the arena crew was sweeping red-and-blue confetti into dustpans following Gonzaga's sixth-straight WCC Tournament title, or eighth in 10 years.
The West Coast Conference belongs to Gonzaga, and BYU is an also-ran — albeit on a different level than the likes of San Diego, San Francisco, Pepperdine and so forth.
The Zags rule the roost, even in a season when the league coaches anonymously voted for hated rival Saint Mary's and all-everything center Jock Landale to win the conference. The defending national runners-up are still the team to beat in the private-school consortium known as the WCC.
But back to BYU.
The Cougars return every player from the 2017-18 roster, add a Gatorade Idaho player of the year in Lee, and should welcome back Emery, barring the results of his NCAA investigation (and other affairs) for 2019.
But the focus late Tuesday night was that of another opportunity lost for BYU — that of going to the NCAA Tournament.
"We knew that we put ourselves in a situation where the only direct route to the NCAA Tournament was to win all three games (in Las Vegas)," Rose said. "So we’re going to go home a little disappointed.
"But there’s no question at all that this team has improved, and we continue to improve. We’re on a trajectory to where we are going to get better and better. We’ve had some personnel issues over the last couple of years that have surprised us. But I think we can continue to get better and compete for championships in this league."
