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At first glance, tonight's WCC opener for the BYU Cougars appears to be an easy one. After all, BYU has defeated Santa Clara all 12 times the teams have met as WCC members, and 16 straight times overall.

Tipoff is at 7 p.m. at the Marriott Center, and the game will be televised by BYUtv. The Cougars are 13-point favorites.

However, Santa Clara (6-7) is probably better than its record indicates, and is always dangerous as long as sharpshooter Jared Brownridge is around. The senior is averaging 19.2 points per game, and the Broncos are coming off an 87-80 win at Valparaiso in double overtime last week. Yes, the same Valpo that beat BYU in the MGM Grand Main Event championship game in Las Vegas on Nov. 23.

Santa Clara is "a much more physical team" under new coach Herb Sendek than it was under Kerry Keating, BYU coach Dave Rose said at Wednesday's media gathering. "Defensively, they are a lot more aggressive. I think that they do a really good job of staying out of foul trouble, even though they are really physical. We will see how that plays out."

Another senior, 6-8 Nate Kratch, is a handful inside, and sophomore KJ Feagin is back in the lineup after missing the first 12 games with a broken bone in his foot suffered during preseason practice. Feagin averaged 11.4 points and 3.8 assists per game last year.

The Cougars will be without one of their two seniors, 6-8 forward Kyle Davis. The 8.8-point scorer will undergo surgery soon and miss the rest of the season, thereby ending his college basketball career. Footballer Corbin Kaufusi has practiced with the team the past three days and will be available to play after having started in 23 games last year.

Rose said it will be "interesting to see" who gets the minutes vacated by Davis, although he's been limited for nearly a month and the Cougars have already adjusted to not having him.

"So it will be similar to what we've seen," Rose said. "I think that Braiden [Shaw] and Jamal [Aytes] have seen more minutes as a result of that. There have been a few times where we have played a smaller lineup and spaced the floor a little bit and got our guards to penetrate and had some room in there. When we played those two big guys, we keep them short corner, high post, there are still a lot of space that is getting eaten up by those guys. So we spread the floor a little bit that way, but then we add Corbin.

So all of us wonder how that will play into the plans of this team. The first three days with him in practice have been surprisingly easy as far as fitting him in. For such a big guy, he moves really well laterally and up and down. We will see how that fits in."

Rose said Kaufusi bulked up — a lot — the past six months while playing football.

"Well, the numbers are still the same," Rose joked. "I mean, he left at 238, and now he is 283. So we will just deal with that, see how he does."

The Cougars haven't played since downing CSU Bakersfield 81-71 last Thursday and are on a modest two-game winning streak. But this will be a good test, Rose said, because Santa Clara has an excellent coach in Herb Sendek and will have scouted the Cougars thoroughly.

"I think we've had a good week, going into conference," Rose said. "Any time you have a week off between games, when you are used to playing games — we have had a few weeks where we have played three games in a week — and you go just to that, where you don't play at all during a seven day stretch, I think the biggest preparation is physically you have got to get your body to where you are feeling good, and in game shape.

And then mentally, all the competitive pieces to this, when you are adjusting from a non-league schedule to a league schedule, the familiarity the other team has with you, how you are scouted, it all changes. There is just a lot more urgency.

For me, that is what we have tried to relate to the players the most, is just to be physically ready to play this game, but also be mentally ready for the resistance that we are going to get as a result of league starting."