BYU Basketball: Cougars release 2018-19 non-conference schedule

BYU Basketball fans now know the Cougars’ non-conference schedule for 2018-19. The home slate is severely lacking, but there are enough big games to build a good NCAA Tournament resume.

BYU Basketball has released their non-conference schedule for the upcoming season.

The Cougars have front-loaded their schedule with home games, with 7 of their first 10 games, including six straight, at the Marriott Center.

Here’s the full non-conference schedule:

• Oct. 19 – Cougar Tipoff (Exhibition)
• Oct. 24 – Opponent TBA (Exhibition)
• Nov. 1 – Westminster (Exhibition)
• Nov. 6 – @ Nevada
• Nov. 9 – Utah Valley
• Nov. 13 – Northwestern State
• Nov. 15 – Oral Roberts
• Nov. 17 – Alabama A&M
• Nov. 21 – Rice
• Nov. 24 – Houston
• Nov. 28 – @ Illinois St.
• Dec. 1 – @ Weber St.
• Dec. 5 – Utah St.
• Dec. 8 – vs. Utah (Beehive Classic in Salt Lake City)
• Dec. 12 – Portland State
• Dec. 15 – vs. UNLV (T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas)
• Dec. 22 – @ San Diego St.
• Dec. 29 – @ Mississippi St.

Takeaways

As a Cougar fan, there’s not much to get excited for as far as the home schedule. They get one good game against Houston, who could be a Top 25 team when they visit the Marriott Center in late November. Outside of that and the UVU game, there aren’t any other games that will fill the Marriott Center.

The scheduling was definitely influenced by the loss of Emery for the first nine games. The Cougars will sorely miss him against Nevada in the opener and in that home matchup against Houston, but he’ll be back for the rest of the games that will impact BYU’s NCAA Tournament resume (Illinois State, Utah, UNLV, San Diego State, Mississippi State).

There’s actually a good balance between resume-building games and games the Cougars should win. Seven games should be resume-builders and eight are ought-to-win games. With most of the tougher games coming toward the end of the non-conference slate, the Cougars can enter those RPI-building games with a strong record.

With this schedule, if BYU can enter conference play with 11 or more wins and no bad losses, they’ve positioned themselves as an at-large contender for the NCAA Tournament.

The blueprint is there, now the wins have to follow.