As the start of the 2020 college basketball season creeps closer, very few games on BYU’s nonconference schedule have been announced due to extenuating circumstances.
So coach Mark Pope is getting some creative ideas.
“I’m hopeful to get this schedule done certainly by next Thursday,” Pope said. “Or you know what? Maybe what we do is just announce the game at shootaround every day. It would be like an Advent calendar. It would be like, wake up in the morning and find out who the Cougs are playing tonight. That could be fun.”
Pope said he is planning for the Cougars to play their opening game on Nov. 25, on Thanksgiving eve, followed by a game on Thanksgiving night.
“Yeah, we’re trying to play that opening night. We have a game scheduled Thanksgiving night,” Pope said. “We’re going to try to play back-to-back, the first two games. We’d like to. It’s not final yet, though. That’s one of the things that’s waiting in the wings to see if we can get it done.”
The holdup with finalizing the schedule, Pope said, is that some teams they’re trying to schedule are looking into multiteam event opportunities and can’t commit at this point.
“So we’re just stuck. I can tell you this, we’re playing a lot of games in very few days. It’s going to be fun,” Pope said. “It will be a good schedule. We might announce the schedule with still a couple games unfilled just so we can get it out. I know time is getting short. I hope we’re really close. It looks like we might be playing three game in the first four days or six games in the first nine days. Something like that.”
Right now, BYU’s nonconference schedule includes the Legends Classic on Dec. 2 and 3 at Mohegan Sun casino and resort in Uncasville, Connecticut. Other schools in the field are UConn, USC and Vanderbilt.
Utah Valley University has announced that it will visit BYU on Nov. 28.
Pope said the rivalry game against Utah will also be played this season.
“Both of us fully expect to have it. We’ve got a date. Both of us really want the game. (Utah coach) Larry (Krystkowiak) wants it because he knows he always beats me and I want it so bad because I’d like to beat him one time in my life.”
The Utes rallied to defeat the Cougars at the Huntsman Center 102-95 in overtime last December.
Junior forward Gavin Baxter acknowledged that it’s strange not to have a full schedule just weeks before the season is set to begin. But he and his teammates are getting prepared and being patient.
“That’s kind of been a big thing for us. Nothing is set in the stone at this point. We’ve seen that with football and games get postponed because teams get infections,” he said. “We’ve just got to play like we’re going to have a normal season even though it’s not. But we’ve got to be the best team to be able to adapt to each situation because it’s not going to be like we think. We have to be able to respond to whatever comes our way.”
BYU has been practicing for a few weeks now and Pope likes what he is seeing. The Cougars have been participating in two-a-days but Pope held just one practice Thursday.
“It’s probably more for me than our guys because I need time to figure stuff out. Our guys are working super hard,” Pope said. “The guys are still grinding out. We’re growing. We have so much to figure out. We need every ounce of this time.”
BYU has managed to stay relatively healthy so far.
“We’ve had little injuries but nothing really significant. We’ve been really fortunate there,” Pope said. “Anytime you can get through the bulk of two-a-days with your roster mostly still standing, you’re really grateful.”
How does Baxter describe how practices have been going?
“It’s been really, super competitive, every single practice. We have a winner’s board for each drill,” he said. “We get super competitive and sometimes we’ve got to tone it down a bit because it gets a little intense. The first few weeks of practice have been intense and as competitive as can be.”