BYU basketball left out of top-10 preseason list - and it's great

Usually, teams want to be on preseason top-10 lists, but not always. The college basketball website Hoops HQ released its list of 10 college programs likely to regress in the upcoming 2026-2027 season. BYU basketball is not found on it.

One Big 12 basketball team is on this list, but it's not the Cougars. UCF was ranked No. 2 out of 10, meaning the Knights are nearly the top regression candidate for the coming season. Hoops HQ wrote, "All four double-digit scorers are gone from last year’s NCAA Tournament team, leaving a new crop of projected featured players to watch. One is Dior Johnson, a 6-foot-3 senior guard who averaged just 2.9 points per game at UCF two seasons ago but is coming off a 24-point-per-game campaign at Tarleton State as its sixth man. But can the Knights be a postseason team if Johnson is their best player?"

BYU was a No. 6 seed in last season's NCAA Tournament. The Cougars were a No. 6 seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. They were a No. 6 seed in the 2024 edition of March Madness, too. BYU doesn't regress. The problem is not being able to raise the bar, but the Cougars have been steadily solid. Even without AJ Dybantsa, the Cougars are expected to achieve a certain degree of stability. It speaks well of the program.

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This article originally appeared on BYU Cougars Wire: BYU basketball left out of top-10 preseason list - and it's great