BYU is ranked No. 25 in the preseason Associated Press men’s basketball poll. That is the clean headline. The number immediately below the poll is more useful.
Missouri received 167 points outside the Top 25. BYU received 179.
Twelve points separate a national ranking from the receiving-votes line. On a ballot that awards 25 points for first place and one point for 25th, that is a very small ledge. One voter moving BYU a few places, or a handful leaving the Cougars off entirely, could have erased it.
That does not make the ranking fake. It makes it specific. Voters see enough in Rob Wright III, Collin Chandler, Bruce Branch III, Jaxon Kohler and the rest of Kevin Young’s rebuilt roster to keep BYU in the national picture. They did not give the Cougars much room to look unfinished.
Friday’s 72-61 exhibition win over Nebraska supplied both sides of that argument. BYU trailed at halftime, missed most of its 3-pointers and shot 58.8 percent at the foul line. It also put four players in double figures, forced 18 turnovers and turned a five-3-pointer burst after halftime into an 11-point win.
No. 25 is a fair starting point because this team already has several ways to recover. It is a fragile one because those ways have played together once in public.
The poll placed BYU on its last chair
The full voting totals show a sharp break near the bottom:
| Preseason AP team | Rank | Poll points | Gap from BYU |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kentucky | No. 23 | 243 | 64 ahead |
| Vanderbilt | No. 24 | 241 | 62 ahead |
| BYU | No. 25 | 179 | Baseline |
| Missouri | Receiving votes | 167 | 12 behind |
BYU is much closer to falling out than moving up one place. The Cougars sit 62 points behind Vanderbilt but only 12 ahead of Missouri.
Poll points are not standings, and the gaps do not translate neatly into wins. They do show how voters grouped the teams. Kentucky and Vanderbilt occupy a small cluster. BYU is alone below it, with Missouri close enough to reach over the line.
There is a useful correction here for both optimists and skeptics.
Optimists can point to a second consecutive preseason ranking, only the third such run in program history according to BYU Athletics. This is also the program’s eighth preseason AP appearance. Voters did not erase BYU because AJ Dybantsa, Richie Saunders and Keba Keita are gone. They found a new ranked case.
Skeptics can point to 179 points and refuse to treat No. 25 like a broad national consensus. That is also fair. BYU begins ranked because enough voters placed it somewhere on their ballots, not because the country agreed this is clearly one of the 25 best teams.
The distinction should shape how fans read November. A close opening win would not prove the poll timid. One loss would not prove the roster broken. BYU starts at the boundary, where every early result will move opinion quickly.
Six ranked Big 12 teams turn the label into a warning
BYU is one of six ranked Big 12 teams. Arizona is No. 5, Houston No. 10, Kansas No. 17, Iowa State No. 18 and Texas Tech No. 19.
| Big 12 team | AP rank | Poll points |
|---|---|---|
| Arizona | No. 5 | 1,214 |
| Houston | No. 10 | 829 |
| Kansas | No. 17 | 504 |
| Iowa State | No. 18 | 475 |
| Texas Tech | No. 19 | 466 |
| BYU | No. 25 | 179 |
The SEC is the only conference with more ranked teams, with seven. The Big 12’s six give BYU a strong league address and an unpleasant league schedule.
There is also a 287-point drop from Texas Tech, the fifth ranked Big 12 team, to BYU. Voters put five league teams in or near the top 20, then placed BYU at the door. That looks less like a prediction that the Cougars will contend for the conference title and more like an invitation to prove the rebuilt group belongs with the league’s established tier.
None of BYU’s nonconference opponents appears in the preseason Top 25. The Cougars therefore cannot rely on a ranked November showcase to establish themselves immediately. Ohio State, UNLV and the rest of the nonconference schedule will have to be judged by the basketball they play, not the numeral attached to the matchup.
The conference schedule will bring ranked opportunities later. It will also punish a team that spends too long deciding how its pieces fit.
Nebraska showed four credible scoring answers
The exhibition cannot support a season forecast. It can tell us why voters kept BYU on their ballots.
Collin Chandler scored 19 points and made all five of his free throws. Wright added 17 points and seven assists. Branch produced 15 points, six rebounds and five assists in his unofficial college debut. Kohler finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds despite playing only eight first-half minutes because of foul trouble.
That is a sensible four-player foundation:
- Wright controlled the ball without having to finish every possession himself.
- Chandler scored at three levels, then helped close the game with a charge and his third steal.
- Branch supplied production beyond the scoring column in his first public test.
- Kohler recovered from a quiet, foul-limited half and recorded a double-double.
The last two minutes captured the roster idea. Chandler drew a charge with 1:01 left. On Nebraska’s next possession, he jumped a passing lane, then found Branch for an alley-oop. The transfer guard and freshman wing turned two defensive reads into the play that finished the game.
That matters more than the dunk. BYU does not need a second Wright impersonator. It needs other players to create value before he rescues a possession. Chandler’s defense and Branch’s open-floor decision-making supplied exactly that.
The second-half shooting burst did the same thing in a different form. BYU made five 3-pointers in the first five and a half minutes after halftime. Wright hit two, while Chandler, Branch and Kohler each made one. Nebraska could not load every defender toward the point guard because four Cougars punished the same stretch.
This is the argument behind a ranked BYU team. The roster has enough shooting and ball skill to make a defense solve several problems at once.
The rough edges were real, too
BYU shot 27.8 percent from 3-point range for the game. The Cougars shot 58.8 percent at the line. They trailed 32-28 at halftime after multiple scoring droughts.
Those numbers keep the exhibition useful. A team built around shooting cannot treat one hot second-half window as proof that spacing will repair everything. The five early second-half threes were decisive, but the full-night percentage says BYU did not create or finish that shot consistently.
The free-throw number may be noise from one exhibition. It still cost empty points in a game that remained within one or two possessions late. A team at the bottom of the poll will play plenty of games where two missed foul shots matter more than a ranking.
Kohler’s foul trouble exposed another concern. BYU’s starting center played only eight first-half minutes, and Nebraska carried a four-point lead into the break. He was excellent after halftime, but the sequence asks an obvious question: can BYU hold its shape when its best rebounder sits?
The official recap credits BYU with a 30-18 advantage in paint points and 21 points off 18 Nebraska turnovers. Those are strong counters on a poor shooting night. They also depend on defensive activity and transition chances that a more careful opponent may not provide.
When the turnovers dry up, BYU will need cleaner half-court possessions. When Kohler sits, somebody else has to finish rebounds. When the first drive is cut off, the second decision has to arrive before the defense resets.
Young said after the exhibition that BYU intends to be a high-volume 3-point team and that the second-half improvement came from a second drive and an extra pass. The game backed that up. The ball moved farther after halftime, and the shots began to fall. The lesson is not merely “make more threes.” It is to create the next advantage instead of settling for the first defended look.
No. 25 belongs to the new group, not last year’s memory
BYU’s ranking could easily be misread as leftover credit from the Dybantsa season. The roster construction says otherwise.
Wright is the returning offensive center. Most of the lineup around him is new. Chandler came from Kentucky. Kohler came from Michigan State. Jake Wahlin came from Clemson. Branch is a freshman. Tyler Betsey brings another shooting option after stops at Cincinnati and Syracuse.
Our earlier ESPN roster analysis separated the team’s floor from its unsettled lineup. ESPN ranked BYU No. 20 and No. 23 in a scenario without fifth-year players. The AP’s No. 25 is more cautious, but both judgments begin in the same place: Wright gives the offense a known organizer while the size and shooting around him offer plausible answers.
The Nebraska game moved those answers from paper to a first draft. Chandler looked capable of sharing difficult possessions. Branch did not need 20 shots to affect the game. Kohler changed the second half after foul trouble. Wahlin supplied a late baseline basket even though he was not one of the four double-figure scorers.
One exhibition does not settle the rotation. It does make the ranking easier to understand. Voters are buying the variety, not continuity.
That variety comes with a cost. New players have to learn which advantage belongs to whom. Wright can create the first opening, but Chandler, Branch, Wahlin and Kohler must recognize what follows. A roster full of options can become a roster full of pauses if everyone waits for the point guard to decide twice.
UNLV is the last rehearsal before the ranking counts
BYU visits UNLV on Saturday, Oct. 24 at 2 p.m. Mountain in the Thomas & Mack Center. The official schedule lists MW+ and live stats. It is another exhibition, so the result will not change BYU’s record or AP position.
The useful checkpoints are narrower:
- Does BYU create quality 3-pointers throughout the game instead of living on one burst?
- Who rebounds and protects the paint when Kohler sits?
- Can Chandler and Branch repeat their defensive playmaking without gambling out of position?
- Does Wright keep producing assists when the opponent takes away the first drive?
- Which bench group can survive without two of the four double-figure scorers on the floor?
The men’s basketball schedule moves from UNLV to the Nov. 2 regular-season opener against Ohio State at the Delta Center. That is when No. 25 becomes part of the public record rather than preseason conversation.
The poll did not hand BYU a cushion. It gave the Cougars the final ranked spot by 12 points, with five Big 12 teams well ahead of them and Missouri close behind.
That feels about right. Wright is proven. Chandler, Branch and Kohler gave the first public evidence that the new roster can carry possessions with him. The shooting and free throws made sure nobody could mistake evidence for completion.
BYU has a chair in the Top 25. It also has Missouri’s hand on the back of it. The only useful response is to make the basketball sturdier than the margin.
Sources and further reading
- BYU Athletics: BYU ranked No. 25 in the AP preseason poll for BYU’s rank, 179 points, Big 12 representation, consecutive preseason-ranking history, returning player baseline and Ohio State opener.
- NCAA: Oct. 19 Associated Press poll for the full Top 25 order and voting points.
- Associated Press: men’s basketball Top 25 poll for the official poll and voter list.
- Deseret News via Yahoo Sports: BYU earns its eighth preseason ranking for independent confirmation of BYU’s ranking history, the six ranked Big 12 teams, receiving-votes teams and unranked nonconference schedule.
- Yahoo Sports/Gators Wire: Florida leads the preseason poll for Missouri’s 167 receiving-votes total and the national conference distribution.
- BYU Athletics: BYU 72, Nebraska 61 exhibition recap for the score, player lines, team shooting, turnover and paint totals, second-half sequence and Kevin Young’s comments.
- BYU Sport Nuts: men’s basketball hub, roster, schedule and ESPN preseason roster analysis.
