UNC basketball will play BYU in a preseason exhibition game, the Tar Heels announced July 22.
The matchup between the Tar Heels and Cougars will be played on Friday, Oct. 24, in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the Delta Center, home of the NBA’s Utah Jazz. BYU features top-ranked recruit AJ Dybantsa, who had UNC among his final schools before choosing the Cougars. Dybantsa is expected to be a top-five pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
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Senior guard Seth Trimble is the top returner in UNC’s fifth season under head coach Hubert Davis, who added several players via the transfer portal to surround Trimble and five-star freshman Caleb Wilson. Arizona’s Henri Veesaar and Alabama transfer Jarin Stevenson are among the new faces for the Tar Heels.
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The game won’t count against either team’s record, but UNC is 5-0 in the all-time series against BYU. Four of those five games were played at a neutral location, including the Tar Heels’ win against the Cougars in the championship game of the 2007 Las Vegas Invitational.
UNC hasn’t played in Salt Lake City since the 1988 NCAA Tournament, when the Tar Heels won their first two games of March Madness at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Center. UNC, which is 4-0 at the Huntsman Center, will be making its debut at the Delta Center, which opened in 1991.
The Tar Heels’ neutral-site game against the Cougars will be the first of two preseason contests for UNC, which hosts Division II opponent Winston-Salem State on Oct. 29 at the Smith Center in Chapel Hill.
The Tar Heels open the 2025-26 season with a pair of home games, tipping things off with Central Arkansas on Nov. 3 before welcoming fellow blueblood Kansas to Chapel Hill on Nov. 7.
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Rodd Baxley covers Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his ACC coverage on X/Twitter or Bluesky: @RoddBaxley. Got questions regarding those teams? Send them to rbaxley@fayobserver.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: UNC basketball schedule: Tar Heels play BYU in preseason exhibition
