BYU Basketball: What we know about the 2021-22 schedule
By Adam Gibby
BYU Basketball has not yet released the 2021-22 basketball schedule, but we are getting close to knowing all the opponents.
Unlike college football where games are put together years in advance, basketball for the most part is put together between May and August before each season. Sure, some big tournaments like the Maui Invitational may be announced years in advance, but for 95% of the other games, it is a complete mystery.
Even in the WCC under the relatively new format of not playing every team twice, there is some mystery as to who the two teams are that BYU Basketball won’t play in a given season. (Hint: It will never EVER be Gonzaga or Saint Mary’s)
While the basketball season is less than four months from tipping off, we still don’t know the entire schedule, although we are starting to get closer with the recent announcement of BYU and Creighton playing a neutral site game at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
To this point, here is the schedule we know:
Likely November Games
Texas Southern
Weber State
Utah State
at Utah Valley
Likely December Games
at Oregon
San Diego State
at Utah
Iona (Madison Square Garden) – *not confirmed*
December 11th BYU vs Creighton – Neutral Site in South Dakota
December 22-25th Diamondhead Classic – Hawaii (South Florida will be first matchup)
Conference Schedule
BYU will play San Diego at home and Santa Clara on the road. The rest of the schedule will consist of home/away games against Gonzaga, St. Mary’s, Pepperdine, San Francisco, Portland, Pacific and Loyola Marymount.
It is worth noting that somehow BYU Basketball has only played Santa Clara once in each of their last three seasons.
Likely games to be added
Since the WCC switched to a 16 game conference format, and BYU Basketball normally likes to about 32 games, it can assumed that the Cougars will likely add another three to four games before the season begins.
In the past, the Cougars have normally played two or three easy games to start off the season at home against teams like Westminster, Cal State Fullerton, or UT Tyler. It can be expected the Cougars will play at minimum two meaning that there may be one big game remaining to be announced.
There will also likely be two or three exhibition games that will be announced at a later date.
What do you think about the opponents? Should the Cougars go after another high name team considering they already have Iona, Oregon, Creighton, San Diego State and Gonzaga(2), or settle for some automatic wins?