No. 10 Cougars open Big 12 play Saturday with a tough game at rebuilt Kansas State

MANHATTAN, Kansas — BYU basketball coach Kevin Young massively upgraded his nonconference schedule in his second season in Provo, and the Cougars responded with 12 wins and only one loss, by two points to No. 3 UConn in Boston.

Along the way, they beat the likes of Villanova, Wisconsin, Miami, Dayton and Clemson and piled up five Quad 1 or Quad 2 wins.

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But one thing the No. 10 Cougars did not do in November or December was play a true road game on an opponent’s home floor. Not since a 90-89 exhibition loss at Nebraska on Oct. 18 has BYU faced the kind of hostile crowd that it will face Saturday when Big 12 play begins.

The Cougars, who have won eight-straight Big 12 regular-season games, second only to Houston’s 10, open league play here at Bramlage Coliseum against the rebuilt-but-dangerous Kansas State Wildcats (9-4) at 11:30 a.m. MST in a game that will be televised nationally by CBS.

“It is a high-powered offensive team,” Young said Thursday after a practice in Provo. “They have a really good scorer in (P.J.) Haggerty. And (Abdi) Bashir is one of the best shooters in the country, along with a few other guys on their roster. So we have to pay them the respect that they deserve as a 3-point shooting team. … Haggerty is a one-man wrecking crew in and of himself.”

Indeed, the matchup features two of the top three scorers in the country, as BYU’s AJ Dybantsa is second in the country with a 23.1 average and Haggerty, who has also played at TCU, Tulsa and Memphis, comes in with a 22.9 average. Duke freshman Cameron Boozer is No. 1 at 23.5 points per game.

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“We’ve been really impressed on tape with a few of their other players as well. They’re not just a one-man band,” Young said. “There are some other guys that can really hurt you off the dribble as well.”

BYU lost 84-74 to K-State the last time it visited Bramlage, when Mark Pope was the Cougars’ coach. Last year, the Cougars walloped the Cats 80-65 in Provo.

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Publish date : 2026-01-02 22:30:00

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