In the onset now of rugged Big 12 basketball play and the aftermath of BYU’s recent tight win over Utah at the Huntsman Center, questions have bubbled up regarding just how good this iteration of Cougars is.
And those questions are regulated — made more complicated and less reasonable — by the central thing that modulates them: expectations.
Great expectations.
After Kevin Young’s sudden ascent to the top of BYU basketball, when he attracted a player like Egor Demin and retained a player like Richie Saunders, and the Cougars made it to the Sweet Sixteen last season, and he piled on to that by keeping Saunders again and bagging AJ Dybantsa, the No. 1 prospect in the world, Rob Wright, a star point guard out of Baylor, Kennard Davis, a main cog from Southern Illinois, and drawing in others, as well, let’s just say what was expected and projected soared to a certain level.
Has BYU lived up to all that?
Whether you say yes or no, your answer is a compliment as much as a criticism.
The Cougars should be nothing short of exceptional this season. Measuring them by what should be is a mountainous-and-menacing measure. But that’s the tough tale of the tape when you reel in a guy who just might be, depending on which team lands the initial selection, the top pick in a stellar 2026 NBA draft, a 6-9 freshman who can move quick and smooth, who can create his shots, who can find his spots as he will, who defenders have to foul to prevent from making them look foolish. That’s Dybantsa. He ranks tied for fourth in NCAA scoring (22.9 points per game) and is making 58.1 percent of his attempts. He goofs up here and there, but the plays he makes in occasional bursts seem nitro-fueled, enough to make a basketball lover’s imagination go throttle up.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU Cougars center Keba Keita (13) over Utah Utes forward Seydou Traore (0) as Utah hosts BYU, NCAA basketball in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.
Add in Wright, a point guard with speed who can score and set up his teammates, who can play and probably has to play better defense than he’s displayed thus far, and Saunders, who has a flash-of-lightning release and a far-reaching set of skills, and that right there is more than enough to beat most teams. Few outfits have a scoring trifecta like that. Additional help comes in various forms from Keba Keita and Davis and a few others. The Cougars have suffered some injuries that have shortened their bench, and that, if anything, could lead to their ultimate demise. They rank 347th nationally in bench scoring (14.06 per game).
But they have a coach who’s built his name on transforming mediocre players into good ones and standard players into stars at the game’s highest level. Ask Dybantsa why he decided to come to BYU and his answer is short and simple: Kevin Young.
What’s been seen so far from the Cougars is 15 wins in 16 games and counting. They’ve stumbled early in some games, playing beneath themselves, turning it on later — in a manner that indicts those lesser spells. Three games into the Big 12 schedule, they are unbeaten there. They’ve defeated teams who subsequently have gone on to a fair bit of success, including Villanova, Clemson and Wisconsin, a team that just beat explosive Michigan, and their sole loss was a two-point splat in Boston against UConn.
There are those — foremost among them, Utah fans — who have ripped BYU for its showing against the 8-8, 0-3 Utes, a five-point victory that was a brawl from start to finish. Even though it was played at the Huntsman, a contest featuring a supposedly potential Final Four team shouldn’t be pushed by a Utah team that earlier had lost to Cal Poly and Grand Canyon. Pushed, it was, defeated, it was not.
But … expectations, man.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) BYU basketball player Richie Saunders dribbles during a game earlier this season in Provo.
Utah did to the Cougars what other opponents will attempt to do — double- and triple-team Dybantsa, forcing him to relinquish the ball more than he normally would. Still, he scored 20 points on 9-for-16 shooting. And Wright got 23 points and Saunders 24. The Utes fouled the freshman, primarily because they couldn’t guard him straight-up, instead repeatedly sending him to the line to shoot free throws.
All told, BYU ranks 22nd nationally in scoring offense, averaging 88.2 points per game, and 22nd in effective field goal percentage (57.8). It ranks 92nd in assists per game (15.9), 77th in assist-to-turnover ratio, 27th in blocks per game (5.0), 27th in fast break points, 47th in field goal percentage defense, 45th in rebounds per game, 84th in 3-pointers per game, 73rd in scoring defense … and, well, you get the idea. There’s statistical improvement to be made, if you put a lot of emphasis on such things.
After the wins over Arizona State at home and Utah on the road, the Cougars dropped in the AP poll from ninth to 11th. Take that for whatever it’s worth, whatever it means, probably not a lot at this point.
A year ago, Young’s team got better as the season wore on, crescendoing in the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments, where it played its best ball. That will be the goal again this time around, and league games ahead against some of the country’s strongest teams are bound to reveal how well the Cougars hold up and whether their reach is anywhere near what was presupposed in the season’s run-up.
Dybantsa said back then what a lot of great players say — that he wants to win a championship. He has expectations, too. Fittingly enough, great ones. The weeks ahead get wicked serious in determining if that desire, that intention, was and is a daydream, a delusion or the most real of deals.