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BYU and Ole Miss have never met on the basketball floor before, but the Cougars and Rebels do share something in common — a 1989 game in the old Cougar Classic on Dec. 9 in which BYU beat Alabama-Birmingham 98-82 in Provo.

Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy played on that Blazers team, and said Monday that he still remembers facing the Cougars and Marty Haws, father of current BYU star Tyler Haws.

"I remember it didn't end well for the old UAB Blazers. I do remember that," Kennedy said. "I do remember altitude is real. You try to talk yourself out of it as a coach, it's just altitude. No, it's real. I remember that. I remember his dad was a good player, very good player. His son is tremendous, tremendous. And they're similar. They're similar in their look, similar in their style of play. It was a long time ago in the late '80s. We played in, I believe it was the Marriott Classic, some tournament in BYU. And it didn't end good for us. But I got a chance to experience firsthand the passion of BYU basketball. Storied history. Great fan support. Incredible facilities. They should be proud to be here once again."

Tyler Haws said his dad did mention that game to him when the matchups were announced Sunday night.

"He said he thought he recognized Andy Kennedy from somewhere. And I think he was on a team that snapped my dad's winning streak of something one of the years they played in the late '80s. So it is pretty cool."

Kennedy crushed it at the news conference Monday, delivering some really funny stuff and even referencing former Ute/Rebel Marshall Henderson.

Here's what he said when asked about defending Tyler Haws and keeping up with BYU's fast-paced attack (which is when then reference to Henderson came in):

"It's more than him. He's awfully good. But it's more than him. Their style of play is such that they're going to put pressure on you really with four guys on the perimeter all night. Their pace of play is unlike any we've seen this season. They're truly committed to playing fast. Dave Rose and I are friends, contemporaries through Nike, and we've done some social things together, and when I see him I'm going to say, boy, I made a huge mistake not playing for you. People think I'm a liberal offensive coach. I'm the most conservative coach you've ever seen compared to the way BYU runs and shoots quickly. I'm glad they didn't recruit Marshall [Henderson] I don't think he met the code, but they really let you shoot it fast. For us, we've got to follow our formula, and you know what that is. We can't give them live-ball turnovers. We can't allow them to beat us on the offensive glass and get second-chance opportunities. We've got to run them off the 3-point line. We've got to do a good job of using our size and athleticism up front to make them play through us. And if we do that, and we can manufacture some baskets, it should be an entertaining game."

Finally, Kennedy mentioned the fact that a lot of BYU players have been on two-year LDS Church missions and said he had to tell his players exactly what a mission is, who goes on them, etc. For the record, BYU has seven returned missionaries on its roster: Kyle Collinsworth, Tyler Haws, Josh Sharp, Corbin Kaufusi, Nate Austin, Skyler Halford and Isaac Neilson.

"If you leave BYU open, they're going to make [shots]," Kennedy said. "That's proven over the course of 30-some odd games. We've got to be really locked in, understanding personnel. That's not easy to do in a two-day turn. And I spent half my pregame talk today or prepractice talk talking about a mission because I'd say, hey, this guy's gone on a mission. And I had to explain to them exactly what that was. We're trying to get up to speed on BYU and the different challenges they're going to present."