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BYU Basketball: Cougars will (sort of) host an early-season tournament

By Shaun Gordon

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - DECEMBER 2: Head coach Dave Rose of the Brigham Young Cougars looks on in the first half against the Utah Utes at the Jon M. Huntsman Center on December 2, 2015 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - DECEMBER 2: Head coach Dave Rose of the Brigham Young Cougars looks on in the first half against the Utah Utes at the Jon M. Huntsman Center on December 2, 2015 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images) /
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BYU Basketball will be competing in the Men Against Breast Cancer Cougar Cup, a Multi-Team Event, this season without ever leaving home.

BYU Basketball’s schedule has been a bit of an enigma until now.

According to NCAA rules, a team can only schedule 29 regular-season games unless they play in a Multi-Team Event, such as an in-season tournament. Examples of this are the Maui Invitational, Preseason NIT, and Wooden Invitational.

If they plan in an MTE, then a school can have up to 31 games on their regular-season schedule. For more details on how it works, check out our previous article.

Yet BYU scheduled a full 31-game slate without even a whiff of news about the Cougars joining an MTE.

Until Wednesday.

BYU announced that they’ll take part in the Men Against Breast Cancer Cougar Cup, and they’ll do so without ever leaving the friendly confines of the Marriott Center.

With most similar events, at least some of the participating teams gather in one location to play some of the games, but all of the games in the Cougar Cup will take place on individual campuses.

Along with BYU, the other teams in the cup are Houston, Rice, Northwestern State, and Alabama A&M.

Each team will play four games, one against each of the other teams in the cup. BYU is the only team to play all four games at home. The team that finishes with the best record wins the cup, and a tiebreaker is determined first by head-to-head results, and second by point differential if necessary.

It’s no surprise that the final game of the cup features Houston’s visit to BYU. In all likelihood the two teams will enter the game undefeated in the cup, with the winner taking home the championship.

For BYU this is a perfect way to fulfill the MTE requirement while getting an extra handful of home games. Plus, it turns the game with Houston, which is already going to have NCAA Tournament resume implications, into an even more meaningful matchup.

And home games with Rice, Northwestern State, and Alabama A&M now have an added purpose as well.

Men Against Breast Cancer Cougar Cup schedule:

  • Nov. 10 – Alabama A&M at Houston
  • Nov. 12 – Alabama A&M at Rice
  • Nov. 13 – Northwestern State at BYU
  • Nov. 14 – Rice at Houston
  • Nov. 17 – Northwestern State at Rice
  • Nov. 17 – Alabama A&M at BYU
  • Nov. 19 – Northwestern State at Houston
  • Nov. 21 – Rice at BYU
  • Nov. 23 – Alabama A&M at Northwestern State
  • Nov. 24 – Houston at BYU
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