No. 8 BYU vs. No. 25 North Carolina
- Tip: Friday, 7 p.m. MDT
- Venue: Delta Center, Salt Lake City
- Livestream: ESPN+
- Radio: KSL 1160 AM/102.7 FM/BYU Radio Sirius XM 143
The trends
For BYU: The Cougars played their first exhibition game last week at Nebraska, where BYU lost 90-89.
Kevin Young used the contest to get an extended look at his bench, and that included five bench players being on the court at the end of the game when the Cougars had a chance to win.
For North Carolina: This will be the Tar Heels’ first of two exhibition games.
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In two weeks, North Carolina will be taking on another Big 12 team, blueblood Kansas, when the Tar Heels host the Jayhawks on Nov. 7.
Players to watch
For BYU: Wing AJ Dybantsa, the Cougars’ highest-rated recruit of all time, had 30 points and seven rebounds while shooting 52.6% from the field in the loss to Nebraska in his first game in a BYU jersey.
Guard Richie Saunders is a first-team All-Big 12 performer who averaged 16.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game.
For North Carolina: The 6-foot-10 Caleb Wilson, like Dybantsa, is a top-10 talent in the 2025 recruiting class and he was named to the preseason All-ACC second team and All-ACC freshman team. This will be his first game in a UNC uniform.
Center Henri Veesaar is the Tar Heels’ highest-rated transfer this offseason, and he came from Arizona. Last season with the Wildcats, he faced BYU twice and scored 17 points in Provo and 12 in Tucson.
What to watch for
This will be BYU’s final chance for a tuneup before kicking off the 2025-26 season on Nov. 3 in a neutral-site matchup with Villanova at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Last year, in Young’s first season as BYU’s head coach, the Cougars played a secret scrimmage against Boise State and an exhibition game against Colorado Christian.
“This year, across the board, we wanted to have a little steeper competition (in preseason action),” Young said this week at Big 12 basketball media days.
North Carolina will certainly provide that.
The Cougars were a bit banged up in their game against Nebraska last week — as the Deseret News’ Jay Drew noted. Baylor transfer guard Robert Wright III was on a “minute restriction” in the exhibition opener and will be again Friday, while others like Nate Pickens, Dawson Baker and Brody Kozlowski did not play in BYU’s blue-white scrimmage or the Nebraska game.
“Unfortunately, this year, we were super banged up in our first exhibition game, so we didn’t get (exactly what they wanted),” Young said. “We learned some, but we didn’t learn what we really wanted to learn.”
Much of the spotlight will be on the true freshmen Dybantsa and Wilson, and understandably so. Their additions to their respective programs elevates them into the national conversation going into the 2025-26 campaign.
It will be a good test for the Cougars against another power conference team — and a blueblood program, no less — that has high expectations this season.
It also will help prepare BYU for a challenging nonconference schedule that includes games against the aforementioned Villanova, No. 4 UConn, No. 24 Wisconsin, Miami and Clemson.
What they’re saying
“I wish it was more like the NBA. I hate practicing for eight straight months. I guess it’s four or five straight months where you’re just going against each other. Just in talking to a lot of the coaches, I think you get your own guys banged up.
“I wish we could play more (exhibition games), just so you get different looks, different bodies and things like that. So I’m in favor of (playing more). I like them, and hopefully in the future, we can get more.”
— BYU coach Kevin Young on the hopes of playing more exhibition games in the future
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