This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

It's a crapshoot, deciding whether a bubble team is worthy of a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Everything is relative and figuring that relativity, especially among scattered teams from diverse conferences vying for the 37 at-large bids, is difficult. It's one of those on-the-one-hand and on-the-other-hand things.

BYU sits at 25-8 and coach Dave Rose says his team "deserves" to be in.

But watching the Cougars' performance against Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference tournament, deserving wasn't the word that came to mind. BYU was a mess, unable to hit shots, unable to find good looks, unable to show discipline, unable to resist jacking up whatever was available, unable to stop the Bulldogs from shooting 55 percent.

And despite the Cougars making Gonzaga look otherworldly, the truth is, the 'Dogs are very much a terrestrial team.

Playing in the WCC this season both hurt and helped BYU's cause. It helped inflate the Cougars' league regular-season record, 12-4, and, thereby, their notable overall mark. And maybe even their sense of well-being. Beating the likes of Pepperdine and Portland and San Diego and Santa Clara and San Francisco is beneficial, in a limited way. But that doesn't make it any kind of authentic benchmark. Losing by double-digits to Saint Mary's, on the road and at home, losing to Gonzaga twice and losing at home to Loyola Marymount hardly inspires selection committee members who left Saint Mary's out of the big tournament last season, when the Gaels had an identical 25-8 record.

Don't simply fall for the 25-8 thing.

If BYU still had been playing in the Mountain West Conference with the team it put on the floor this time around, it's easy to see its record dropping well short of what it ended up being. UNLV, New Mexico and San Diego State were probably all better than the Cougars, and so perhaps was Colorado State, a bubble-mate right now. Despite a record of 19-10 and 8-6 in league, the Rams have an RPI of 21 and a top-five strength of schedule.

Saint Mary's being left out last season is but one bit of evidence that playing in the WCC hurts BYU, too. Although the Cougars' addition bolsters the league, its overall perception among committee members blows nobody away.

That's the trick to doing what the committee is charged to do: evaluate and place an ultimate judgment of inclusion or exclusion on teams as varied as North Carolina State, Harvard, Xavier, Texas, Iona, Southern Miss, and many more. Drexel, which went 27-6 and 16-2 in the CAA, wants in, but its strength of schedule hangs in the mid-200s.

Looking at BYU's results, it's hard to categorically dismiss the Cougars, but it's just as tough to make a convincing case for sending them a hearty invitation. They beat Gonzaga, one out of three. They beat Oregon. They beat Nevada. They beat Weber State. But they lost to Utah State. They lost to Wisconsin. They lost to Baylor. As mentioned, they got crushed twice by Saint Mary's. And LMU beat them in the Marriott Center. They were 3-6 against Top 50 teams and 5-6 against the Top 100.

No team is perfect, and that's certainly not the standard here. But in the Year After Jimmer, Rose's team sometimes looked undisciplined and impatient. There were more than a few nights when it couldn't hoist a shot into a sinkhole. The Cougars faced some adversity, not having the services of their point guard in the early going, suffering some injuries, adjusting to a new league.

That last one, though, is a shallow excuse. You think bubble teams from power conferences, say, West Virginia, when it was struggling through the Big East, wouldn't have loved to play against the kind of competition the WCC serves up?

Conversely, it isn't as though Harvard waded through croc-infested waters in the Ivy League.

The Cougars, then, will have to reap what they sowed, have to nervously sit, wait and see this week. Wait and see how the league tournaments unfold, how many upsets stack up, how worthy or unworthy they are deemed to be. It's the curse of an undistinguished season.

And, short of Weber State winning the Big Sky tournament at Montana, no Utah men's team has truly distinguished itself in 2011-12.

If BYU doesn't get in and Weber loses and Utah State doesn't pull off some kind of ridiculous miracle at the WAC tournament and Utah … well, never mind, no team from the Beehive State will have danced onto the edge of the biggest dance for the first time in recent memory.

They will have shot the craps … and lost.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Gordon Monson Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 97.5 FM/1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.