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Seems like the Cougars have been here before - a lot.

Those were my thoughts immediately after BYU fell 91-75 to No. 7 Gonzaga on Tuesday night at Orleans Arena. It is deja vu all over again.

The Cougars are atop the NCAA Tournament bubble, their home away from home the past four seasons, or ever since Jimmer Fredette and Co. lost to Florida in that Sweet 16 game in New Orleans.

Naturally, that was the question du jour for coach Dave Rose and players Kyle Collinsworth and Tyler Haws in the postgame press conference.

Do the Cougars feel like they're in the Big Dance, or not?

Said Rose: "I think there is a committee put together that is going to decide this, and if they watched us play, I think they will feel pretty good about putting us in that tournament."

Apparently, GU coach Mark Few made BYU's case with some of his post game comments, saying the Cougars definitely belong and are playing like a top-15, top-20 team right now.

Told that, Rose responded: "Well, I think Mark is a really smart man and he's a really good coach."

It was a tough game for Rose, who picked up a technical foul midway through the second half and was obviously disgusted with the officiating from the time star guard Tyler Haws picked up his second foul just 3 minutes, 28 seconds into the contest, a rare one (for him) on the offensive end.

The coach is now 0-5 in conference tournament championship games in his 10 seasons at the helm.

"I think the most difficult thing is for this group of guys [to live with that]," Rose said of the title-game futility. "We battled hard, and we came up short. They are a good team. Gonzaga is one of the best teams in the country, and I think we gave them a pretty good fight."

Collinsworth said it isn't his job to decide whether the Cougars get into the tournament or not, and he's going to keep it that way.

"You know what? We are just going to keep our heads up, keep working hard, and let the people that take care of that take care of it," he said. "But we have had a great run this last stretch and our playing the best basketball we have played all year."

Of more immediate concern for BYU is the condition of senior guard Skyler Halford, who had 13 points and has been a tremendous contributor. Halford went down with less than a minute remaining and had to be helped to the locker room, favoring his left leg.

Rose said Halford "has a lower leg nerve contusion."

Of course, Anson Winder didn't play for the second-straight game, and his defensive presence and slashing ability were greatly missed. Winder had 17 points when BYU lost to Gonzaga in Provo, four on Feb. 28 in the Cougars' win in Spokane.

"I thought our guys battled. We fought hard and stayed together," Rose said. "I thought we competed really well. I thought we had a difficult time getting stops, a difficult time guarding them inside. We had some shots we normally make that we didn't, so I thought our guys played with a lot of energy, a lot of fight, a lot of determination. We just weren't able to come out with the victory tonight."

BYU led for just one minute, 50 seconds of the game, a far cry from Feb. 28 when it led wire-to-wire in Spokane. Collinsworth said it is difficult to play catch-up against the Zags.

"When you get down against Gonzaga, they are such a good team, and they have such a great point guard in Kevin Pangos that they know how to control the game," he said. "But it is a game of runs, and we met their run, but unfortunately weren't able to hold it and get that lead. We fought and gave it everything we had, and we just didn't get that extra run. So it was tough."