I have to admit I had not been keeping track of basketball at my alma mater, BYU, when I read about the team in today's WSJ:

Brigham Young University has one of the country's finest college-basketball teams, featuring a player that their fans insist should be the National Player of the Year.

It's a prestigious school that propels its graduates to desirable jobs. Wherever the team travels, especially in its conference, the opposing fans make it exceedingly clear that they would like to see them mashed into a pulpy sauce. And its team colors are blue and white.

In other words, BYU has become the Duke of the West.

The comparison reminded me of an interview Jeffrey Holland gave when he was President of BYU. Holland received degrees at BYU before getting a doctorate at Yale. He was asked if he was trying to make BYU the Yale of the West. Without missing a beat he said his goal was to have Yale and Harvard via for the title of being the BYU of the East.

Duke the BYU of the East one day?

Mick Adds: It's not just hype. BYU actually exceeds Harvard in 'popularity'.

For the second year in a row, Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah is the most popular national university in America among applicants, according to an analysis of yield (the percentage of students accepted to a school who opt to attend) by U.S.News & World Report. BYU dropped four spots to 75th in U.S. News's 2011 rankings of national universities, which are research-oriented institutions that offer degrees of all levels. That did not deter admitted students from choosing the school—76.9 percent of accepted students enrolled in fall 2009.