Debatable that it was because of Pope certainly. Noah was really good before but did and a nice turnaround game his senior year. Who was bad? Harward, Worthington, and Ambrosino. 2 of those guys were done after 1 year and all were clearly recruiting misses one of which got his offer before Pope was on staff. Austin gets trashed on CB fairly often but he is an average player would be in the rotation for most teams of BYU's level. Chris Collinsworth is a guy who would have been a huge help but injuries ended his career before he could really show us what he could do.
So 3 out of 7 are high quality before this season and 4 out of 7 are at least solid players. This year is a complete disaster in the post brought on by the recruiting misses of Harward and Worthington and injuries to Austin and Aytes.
Gonzaga is fantastic at finding foreign big men. You got me there BYU has done worse with their big men than Gonzaga the last 4 years.