"... Pope has not engineered BYU into one of the more entertaining and intriguing teams in all of college basketball by simply planning for what’s to come. He’s very much a man of the now, and before the Cougars start thinking about the Big 12, he’d like to leave an impression on the West Coast Conference. “We’ve been in this league for a decade, and we’ve never won a league title or a conference title,’’ he says. “(Gonzaga) has made that difficult for us, but we cannot leave this league without putting our names in the record books somehow.’’"

"College basketball has proven again and again to belong to the old guys. They win the games and the championships. Even in a year stocked with super seniors, BYU is near ancient. That experience ought to manifest itself into yet another stellar season for Pope & Company."