A couple of games into BYU’s Big 12 basketball slate last January, first-year head coach Kevin Young and his staff realized what they had feared would happen when they inherited their nonconference schedule was actually happening.
The 2024-25 Cougars were simply not ready for the physicality and athleticism they were facing in early conference games against Arizona State, Houston, Texas Tech and TCU. They went 1-3 in those games, defeating only ASU, at home.
“Last year’s (nonconference schedule) was fine, but you can only get so much out of some of those games,” Young told the Deseret News Thursday. “You need better (competition). I think it kind of goes in line with our whole philosophy of just trying to get to the getting to a lot sooner.”
“I am learning how scheduling in college basketball actually works. There are these people — brokers, essentially — that try to put games on and so forth. I wasn’t aware of that. That became more active. Once we showed (BYU was willing to play) it definitely wasn’t that hard to put things together.”
— BYU coach Kevin Young
That philosophy that a major upgrade to their nonconference was vital to their Big 12 success, and to getting a higher seed in the NCAA Tournament, has been apparent as Young and his staff have added one big-time opponent after another to their pre-January schedule for the 2025-26 season.
