Have Kevin Young, Cougars constructed a Final Four-caliber roster in 2025-26?

We’re going to say this right off the top, with no apologies.

The most-anticipated BYU men’s basketball season in program history begins Monday, when the Cougars open against three-time national champion Villanova at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

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It is hyperbole.

It is over-the-top optimism.

It might even be viewed as blasphemy, in circles that include Kresimir Cosic, Danny Ainge and Jimmer Fredette.

But it is true.

For the first time in program history, BYU is ranked in the top 10 in the AP Top 25 preseason poll. The Cougars are picked to finish second in the best college basketball conference in the country the past decade or so, the Big 12, behind only national runner-up in 2025, Houston.

That ought to tell you something. Expectations are sky-high.

“I don’t care if we are picked dead last, or first,” Kevin Young said in Kansas City last week, perhaps trying to quell the unbridled confidence sweeping through the fanbase. “It just doesn’t matter right now.”

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What does matter is how BYU finishes a season in which it will have three of the best 50 or so players in college basketball: No. 1 recruit AJ Dybantsa, point guard extraordinaire Rob Wright III, and preseason All-America candidate Richie Saunders.

Throw in one of the best rim protectors in the land, center Keba Keita, elite scorer Kennard Davis Jr. from Southern Illinois, and contributors from the cast that helped BYU get to the Sweet 16 last year — Mihailo Boskovic and Dawson Baker — and the ingredients are there for a special season if Young can get this thrown-together group to play together.

“The sky is the limit for us,” Saunders said. “Expectations right now don’t matter. We clearly have a lot of talent and have the ability to do great things, but the focus is on building the right habits, building chemistry and stacking days, just like last year.

“When the final results come out in March Madness, that’s what really matters. Only that.”

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‘Final Four or Bust’ season for Cougars?

It feels like this could be called a “Final Four or Bust” season for BYU, with the uber-talented Dybantsa expected to be in Provo for just one season before he’s off to the NBA, possibly the No. 1 pick in the June, 2026 draft.

Saunders, the star of last year’s run that whetted appetites for more in Provo, is out of eligibility after this campaign. And with rosters changing year to year at a dizzying pace due to the transfer portal and NIL enticements, Young and his staff will be hard-pressed to create a more dynamic roster than this one.

The pressure is on, and Young knows it. He relishes it. He has been that way since he got the job in April 2024 and said chasing national championships and sending players to the NBA would be the priorities. It is time to prove it in so-called PROvo.

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Nobody needs to remind the program that BYU holds the dubious record of most NCAA Tournament appearances — 31 and counting — without making it to the Final Four.

Here’s a closer look at the team Young has assembled for his second season in Provo, a team that will face a much more difficult nonconference schedule than last year, by design. That starts with Monday’s opener against Villanova, picked to finish seventh in the Big East preseason coaches poll. Also on the docket in November and December: UConn, Wisconsin, Miami, Dayton or Georgetown and Clemson.

It is all set up, of course, to prepare the Cougars for the Big 12 gauntlet, and beyond that, the Big Dance.

“For me, almost every Big 12 game feels like a tournament game, so you have to bring it every night, Young said. “It ups my game and it makes our players’ sense of urgency have to raise every time we have to go play against somebody on this stage. It is great.”

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Exhibition games revealed the starting lineup, increased expectations

In the 90-89 loss at Nebraska and the 78-76 win over North Carolina in extremely competitive exhibition games that don’t count on team records, Young revealed a bigger, more athletic and better defensive squad than he had last year, despite the Cougars not shooting it well from long range in either contest.

The starters in both games were Dybantsa, Saunders, Wright, Davis and Keita, although Wright was on a minutes count and the highest priority was not to win, particularly in the Nebraska game.

Boskovic played the most minutes of any reserve — 17 against Nebraska, 22 against UNC — followed by redshirt freshman Khadim Mboup (29 combined minutes), the 6-foot-9 wing from Senegal, who was with the Cougars last year but didn’t appear in a game.

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Freshman Aleksej Kostic of Austria got the third-most minutes of any reserve, followed by Dominique Diomande, the transfer from France via Washington. Idaho transfer Tyler Mrus only played in the UNC game, while freshman center Xavion Staton saw limited action in both.

Baker, Pickens and sophomore Brody Kozlowski are dealing with injuries and didn’t play in the exhibitions.

Young said at Big 12 media days that four players have dealt with injuries and that two, which he did not name, are not expected back anytime soon.

He called Dybantsa, Saunders and Wright “our three best players” and also called the trio “the three headliners” for the season.

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“Practices have been crazy competitive,” Saunders said. “There’s been so much playing against each other. What we have to do is figure out how to play together, and so that’s why we have done five months of just playing together, offensively, defensively and getting to know each other.”

How much has Young turned the roster over in two years? Saunders and walk-on Jared McGregor are the only remaining members of the team Mark Pope had in 2023-24 before he left for Kentucky.

A roster constructed to contend for Big 12 title and more

Obviously, Dybantsa will be the big draw, and the generational player bolstered that belief by scoring a team-high 30 points against Nebraska and a team-high 18 points against North Carolina, along with grabbing eight rebounds and blocking three shots. He’s the reason why Young was able to put together the most demanding nonconference schedule ever at BYU.

“Once we got AJ committed and we knew he was coming to BYU, we pushed pause on all of our (high school) recruiting,” Young said in Kansas City. “Xavion was someone that we felt good about (and signed), but everybody else we kind of paused on, including some really, really good players, five-star guys, international guys, because they were young.”

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Young said the coaching staff prioritized players with experience in the transfer portal.

“We also wanted to prioritize shooting and perimeter defense,” he said.

To that end, BYU got Davis out of Southern Illinois, Mrus out of Idaho, and Pickens from UC Riverside to mesh with the biggest prize out of the portal, former Baylor standout Wright.

“Tyler Mrus made the second-most 3s in the Big Sky (73), and Kennard Davis has a chance to be one of the best 3-and-D guys in the country this year,” Young said. “Nate Pickens is in that same ilk. Rob Wright is an experienced guy that we felt we needed as kind of the head-of-the-snake type guy to guide our group once he was in the portal. So that’s kind of how that went down.”

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Young said Wright, who didn’t play in the second half against Nebraska but had 12 points against North Carolina, is “one of the most dynamic guards in the country” and will make up for the “big hole at the point guard position when Egor (Demin) decided to go to the NBA.”

Saunders is also a big believer in the 6-foot-1 sophomore from Delaware.

“Having Rob come down (the court) at you, downhill to the basket, it is seriously one of the most impressive things I’ve seen, and he’s fun to play with,” Saunders said. “It has been cool to see how he’s really bought into the way we play.

“And he gets past his first defender easy. And so it’s just seeing him make those reads. And we always talk about playing off of two feet. He’s become a two-feet genius. And, yeah, it’s fun having a point guard like that.”

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Can Dybantsa deliver BYU to the promised land?

Young will struggle to keep all these guys happy with their playing time, as almost every player on this roster could start for nearly any other team in the country. But everything will revolve around Dybantsa, who will make his homecoming on Nov. 15 when the Cougars meet six-time national champion UConn at TD Garden in Boston.

The freshman phenom certainly doesn’t lack confidence.

“On the offensive side, I can do a little bit everything. I think I can score at all three levels. But I think my playmaking is one of the more underrated parts of my game. I can get to the paint and make (good) decisions,” Dybantsa said. “With our offense and our four-out (attack), I can get to the paint, throw lobs to Keba or spray it out to Richie or Rob for some 3s.”

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Having already played the game at Nebraska before he spoke to the media in Kansas City, Dybantsa said his first real taste of college basketball humbled him a little bit, despite scoring 30 points.

“There’s just way more physicality. You have to pay way more attention to detail when you’re in college. I kind of built bad habits when I was in high school, so I’m trying to get rid of those now,” Dybantsa said.

“Just like taking plays off, just standing up on defense, just like being super lackadaisical. In high school, I was a lot better than a lot of people. I just started getting super bad habits, which I shouldn’t have. But KY is trying to clean it up right now.”

Which returning players have improved the most?

Saunders has struggled a bit with his shooting — deadly throughout most of the 2024-25 season — in the exhibition games, but Young is confident that the former Riverton and Wasatch Academy product will return to form.

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“I think Richie has improved as a passer,” Young said. “His ability to find Keba for lobs and things like that (have improved). He had one yesterday at practice that was really impressive. That’s something that he’s added to his game.”

Young said Boskovic will shoot better from long range than the 27% he posted last year (15 of 56) “because I think Mihailo is going to be a lot less stressed this year. He came in the game too many times last year thinking he had to validate his success by making 3s. Now he’s taking better shots, and they are going in at a higher clip.”

Then there’s Keita, the transfer from Utah who led the Cougars in rebounding (7.9 per game) and blocked shots (41) last year while averaging 7.4 points per game. Young said the big man has spent a lot of time working on his free-throw shooting and mid-range game.

“Some guys are just gamers, and that’s what he is. When the lights come on, man, the guy just takes it to another level. So I’m trying to tap into that more with him in practice, to get him to just bring that juice every day,” Young said. “He is going to play more (without the departed Fouss Traore sharing minutes).

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It was hard to take him off the floor last year because he’s so good defensively and he put so much pressure on the rim offensively. … His free-throw shooting is an area we invested a lot of time in this summer. He has to be able to knock them down at a higher clip than he did, and he’s taken personal pride in that, and I look forward to seeing an improved free-throw shooter this year.”

BYU Basketball at a Glance in 2025-26

• Key returners: G/F Richie Saunders, F Mihailo Boskovic, F Khadim Mboup, C Keba Keita, G Dawson Baker, G Jared McGregor

• Key newcomers: G Rob Wright III, F Tyler Mrus, F AJ Dybantsa, G Aleksej Kostic, G Nate Pickens, F Dominique Diomande, G Kennard Davis Jr., C Xavion Staton

• Key losses: G Egor Demin, W Mawot Mag, G Trey Stewart, F Kanon Catchings, G Trevin Knell, G Dallin Hall, P Fousseyni Traore