15. BYU (3-1)
In Kevin Young’s first year coaching BYU he took the Cougars to the Sweet Sixteen and another strong performance in the Big 12. During the offseason, they added a nice haul from the transfer portal and also highly-touted freshman AJ Dybantsa. The results were definitely solid off the bat with a decent win over Villanova on opening night, but it’s fair to say that week two didn’t live up to the expectations.
The final score won’t reflect it, but the Cougars struggled at home in an 85-68 win over Delaware. They actually trailed at the half before turning it on in the second half, led by 26 point efforts from both Richie Saunders and Robert Wright III. BYU faced a much tougher challenge Saturday night in Boston, but used a strong second half again, this time falling 86-84 to UConn. Dybantsa starred near his hometown with 25 points and 6 rebounds while Saunders and Wright each had solid efforts once again.
Here’s the issue for BYU: they have a fantastic Big 3 of talent in Dybantsa, Saunders, and Wright but need to get more from the rest of this lineup. Keba Keita getting injured on Saturday certainly didn’t help matters, let alone the recent arrest of Kennard Davis. The Cougars need to find those pieces, especially after some tough efforts on defense this past week. We’ll see if they can answer those questions before a big Friday matchup against a ranked Wisconsin squad at the end of next week.