This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Las Vegas

When the whistles finally stopped blowing and Gonzaga celebrated another championship in the middle of the Orleans Arena court, BYU guard Kyle Collinsworth unhappily trudged toward the locker room.

Compared with previous developments in this building, that was a highly favorable scene for the Cougars. Never mind that they could not come any closer to Gonzaga than last March, or that they exited a league tournament as losers for a 14th consecutive year after the Bulldogs' 91-75 victory in the West Coast Conference title game.

The takeaway from Las Vegas is the Cougars (25-9) are much better equipped for upcoming NCAA Tournament competition than they were in 2014, following Collinsworth's serious knee injury vs. Gonzaga in the WCC event.

Eerily, though, key reserve Skyler Halford injured his leg in the final minute Tuesday night. So forgive the Cougars for wondering when they'll ever enjoy this exercise. Someday, they would love to earn an automatic NCAA bid. Yet they probably did enough in this tournament — and, more to the point, at Gonzaga on Feb. 28 — to merit selection.

Gonzaga coach Mark Few supported the Cougars' case, and BYU's Dave Rose could only endorse Few as "a really smart man."

Rose didn't dwell on BYU's conference tournament history, lamenting only that his current team went unrewarded in the end against powerful Gonzaga. "We gave 'em a pretty good fight," Rose said, "so I'll have to live with that."

Let's just say that beating the Bulldogs twice in 10 days would have been asking an awful lot of BYU. The percentages were not in the Cougars' favor in the rematch, even on a neutral court. Kyle Wiltjer was not going to make only 2 of 11 shots, as he did in Spokane. BYU's Chase Fischer was unlikely to make six 3-pointers, as he did in Monday's semifinal win over Portland.

Sure enough, Wiltjer — the tournament's Most Outstanding Player — scored 12 of his 18 points in the first half and Fischer was scoreless as Gonzaga took a 48-42 lead. Collinsworth's 17 points, on his way to a career-high 28, kept the Cougars in touch, while Tyler Haws played only 11 minutes because of foul trouble. Rose tried to use his bench creatively, while Anson Winder's absence due to a sprained knee thinned BYU's roster.

Rose later became incensed with the officiating, with some apparent justification. That's not why Gonzaga won, but BYU's ridiculous total of 27 fouls contributed to the Bulldogs' inside domination.

In Spokane, Gonzaga never led. In Las Vegas, the Bulldogs rarely trailed. They responded after BYU cut their lead to three points in the second half. "We fought all night … we just couldn't get the extra run," Collinsworth said.

So the question between now and Selection Sunday is whether the Cougars have done enough to merit an at-large bid. They've gone through such an agonizing process annually since 2001, when they last won the Mountain West tournament in Las Vegas.

Partly because of Collinsworth's health, BYU's credentials are stronger than last year, when the Cougars received a No. 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament. BYU deserves another bid, the problem being that mayhem could occur in other conference tournaments and hurt some teams on the bubble.

The Cougars' minimum mission in Las Vegas was to win two games, and they came through — although they beat only the Nos. 7 and 6 seeds.

So until Selection Sunday, BYU can only hope that making it to Tuesday was good enough.