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The BYU basketball team will compete in its second straight NCAA Tournament after being pegged a six-seed in this year’s field. The Cougars are unique in the sense that religious views can impact that seeding.
The BYU Rule is taken into account by the selection committee each time the school is in the bracket. This season is no different, though the repercussions seem minimal this March.
The rule is simple. The Cougars don’t play on Sundays.
NCAA rules state that if a university competing in an NCAA championship has a written policy against competition on a particular day for religious reasons, the championship schedule must be adjusted to accommodate that institution. Brigham Young University has a written policy against Sunday play and therefore will have schedules adjusted to play on Saturday or Monday, even if it involves changing televised or otherwise broadcast events.
That can cause issues when scheduling for the postseason. Typically, the NCAA Tournament is played on the weekends. There are Thursday/Saturday rotations and Friday/Sunday rotations for the opening round.
The BYU rule eliminates half of the bracket for the Cougars. They cannot be involved in any path that leads to a potential Sunday contest.
Last year, it proved costly as the team was bumped down a line in order to accommodate. BYU was viewed as the top five-seed in the NCAA Tournament field. It, instead, landed on the six-line.
That demotion immediately backfired when the Cougars fell in the first round to 11-seed Duquesne. This year, there won’t be as significant an impact.
While the selection committee did have to adjust its bracket to fit BYU’s needs, it didn’t impact the school’s seed line. All it did was eliminate the South and Midwest regions.
The Cougars could only land in the East or West given the Thursday/Saturday rotation. That actually nixed the possibility of being paired with No. 1 overall seed Auburn’s.
BYU will play as the six-seed in the East where Duke is the top team. They’ll face 11-seed VCU on Thursday before a potential meeting with the winner of Wisconsin and Montana on Saturday.
The BYU Rule won’t have a negative impact on the Cougars this time around. There will be no “what-ifs” should the team fall early in postseason play.