Can No. 9 Cougars extend winning streak to 11 games against Arizona State?

One of the best things about playing basketball in the Big 12 is that there is no such thing as a trap game, even when a matchup with your fiercest rival is on the horizon.

That has been BYU coach Kevin Young’s message to his team this week as it prepares for a Wednesday night showdown (7 p.m. MST, Peacock), its Big 12 home opener, at the Marriott Center with reimagined Arizona State (0-1, 9-5), a team that features three explosive scorers and a savvy, experienced and fiery coach, Bobby Hurley.

BYU (1-0, 13-1) finishes the week playing at rival Utah (0-1, 8-6) on Saturday, but Young said there will be no looking ahead. The Sun Devils have too much talent to overlook, and they were one of the better 3-point shooting teams in the country until their last three games, losses at UCLA and at home to Oregon State and Colorado.

Utah (0-1, 8-6) will play at Colorado on Wednesday night before hosting BYU in the Huntsman Center on Saturday night in what will be the first coaching meeting of Young and Alex Jensen, who also came to the college ranks from the NBA.

“To be honest, I haven’t even thought about Utah,” Young said Tuesday afternoon. “We’re extremely locked in on Arizona State and trying to make sure we are dialed in for them. They are a good team, much better than they were last year.”

The Cougars swept the Sun Devils last year, winning 76-56 in Provo and 91-81 in Tempe.

Young said Arizona State is “totally different” than it was last year, with sophomore guard Trevor Best the only holdover from a squad that went 4-16 in league play and 13-20 overall. Another familiar face on the ASU roster is 6-foot-8 redshirt sophomore Marcus Adams Jr., who played sparingly for BYU in 2023-24 before Young arrived in Provo. He’s averaging 3.6 points and 2.4 rebounds off the bench.

Pacific/Pepperdine transfer Maurice “Moe” Odum leads them in scoring with a 16.6 average, while NAIA University of the Cumberlands transfer Anthony “Pig” Johnson chips in 14.1 points per game and 7-foot-1 freshman Massamba Diop of Senegal averages 13.6 per outing.

Arizona State’s best wins were over Texas and Washington State at the Maui Invitational and over Oklahoma and Santa Clara in December.

“They are talented. They did a good job finding good players. I am really impressed with several of their guys,” Young said. “They are obviously super long, starting 6-10, 6-11, 7-1 (players) inside. And then the guard, Moe Odum, he’s as dynamic of a guard as we’ve seen to date.”

Defense and 3-point shooting has abandoned Hurley’s bunch in the three-game skid. They are shooting 19.2% from beyond the arc during that stretch, after shooting 45.3% from deep in the three games before that, against lesser competition.

“We are in a tailspin right now from behind the 3-point line, and we have made a lot of those shots,” Hurley said after the Colorado loss. “… We have to solve our rebounding, and we have to solve our interior defense.”

Meanwhile, BYU enters its first home game since Dec. 22 as one of the hottest teams in the country, and unbeaten in Big 12 play after its 83-73 win at Kansas State last Saturday. The Cougars have won 10-straight games for the first time since the 2010-11 season (when they did that twice) and have won nine-straight Big 12 regular-season games dating back to last year.

Star wing AJ Dybantsa leads the country in scoring (23.1 ppg.) and sophomore guard Rob Wright III, a transfer from Baylor, has been “unbelievable as well,” Young said.

“Rob’s experience in our league is also something that I think I’ve not only relied on, but will rely on even more as we move forward in conference play,” Young said.

The Cougars last won nine-straight regular-season conference games in 2020, when they were in the West Coast Conference.

“We are fairly happy with where we are at,” said senior wing Richie Saunders after he, Dybantsa and Wright combined to score 52 points against KSU. “There are so many things we are still growing at, still getting better at. I feel good about where we are at, but we still need to grow more. … We want to peak at or near the end of conference play. But I like where we are currently at.”