...could be a break-through year for BYU basketball depending on a few things.

St Mary's - loses their entire starting 5 to graduation and the guys who will be back filling are either very unproven or not very good. Not knowing who they are bringing in new, the returning cast looks to take a big step backwards.

Gonzaga - They have a lot of talent returning but lose some big time pieces in Pangos and Bell, also Wesley. If some of their returning players, like Wiltjer, Karnowski, Sabonis, etc, decide to take their chances in the NBA draft they won't be as formidable next season with a younger, less experienced team.

Portland - they lose the heart of their team, the twin towers TVM and Gerun as well as Kevin Bailey. They'll be rebuilding around their PG Wintering and Bryce Pressley.

Pepperdine - this is the one team that won't lose any key pieces and look to be taking a step forward next year. They have a young team and will be deep and loaded putting a really good supporting cast around All-WCC player Stacy Davis. They seem to play their best vs BYU and Rose will need to devise a game plan for them if he wants to break his losing streak.

Pacific - another young team with a lot of returning players. They lose only Gabe Aguirre and bring back some pretty good players in TJ Wallace, Ray Bowles and Eric Thompson. They should improve on last season but not enough to contend for the top 2-3 spots in the conference.

San Fran - They lose 2 of their best players in Glover and Pinkins but will have Mark Tollefson coming back (best offensive weapon) and Tim Derksen. Tollefson's more suited to being a complementary player and tends to disappear at times. They will miss the hustle and defense and toughness of Pinkins and Glover. I think they continue to slide in the standings.

San Diego - they bring a ton of young players back but lose the 2 most important ones on the roster in Johnny Dee and Chris Anderson. I expect them to take a big step backwards this next season.

Santa Clara and LMU - just not enough talent there to worry about.

BYU is clearly better than Pepperdine but we never seem to match their energy when we play them and they take advantage of that. I hope we've learned some things at the end of this season that we carry forward for next year so we can avoid underperforming when we play them. It should come down to BYU and Gonzaga again and with a stronger and more experienced front court in Nate Austin, Corbin Kaufusi, Kyle Davis and Jamal Aytes to go with Kyle, Chase, Nick, etc I think we could make a run for the WCC regular season title and tournament title and have the bigs necessary to go toe-to-toe with the Zags if they bring everyone back and to slug it out with the Waves.

Next season looks to be promising in the WCC.