BYU point guard Dallin Hall was on his church mission in Fresno, California, when the news came out that the Cougars would be joining the Big 12, the “best college basketball conference in the country,” before the 2023-24 season, his second season in Provo.

“I was planning to play in the WCC my whole career at BYU, but getting that news on my mission was some of the most exciting news I had ever heard,” Hall said. “Because as a kid my dream has always been to play against and beat some of the best players in the world, right?”

“And so to have an opportunity to do that every night in conference play, no matter what the result is, is going to make us a better basketball team, better players, and we believe we can play with the best of them,” Hall continued.

That’s pretty much the mindset of the entire team, and its coaching staff, as the long-awaited first season in the Big 12 has finally arrived. As has been thoroughly documented the past six months, expectations from the outside are low for a team that went 19-15 last year, including 7-9 in the West Coast Conference.

BYU is picked to finish 13th in the 14-team Big 12, ahead of only UCF. 

“I feel like everybody is already counting us out,” BYU’s best player, junior forward Fousseyni Traore, said at Big 12 basketball media days on Oct. 18. “We say, ‘Well, we have to go prove them wrong.’ We have to go prove that we belong.”

After facing Life Pacific in an exhibition game on Wednesday night, BYU plays its first official game as a Big 12 member Monday when it hosts Houston Christian at 7 p.m. in the Marriott Center. 

BYU’s first conference game is Jan. 6 against Cincinnati.

“It feels real now,” Traore said. “We have the Big 12 logo on our jerseys, on the court and all around. It’s go-time now.”

Instead of playing two exhibition games, coach Mark Pope elected to play Stanford last weekend in a “secret” scrimmage for the second straight year. According to Robby McCombs of Vanquishthefoe.com, BYU defeated the Cardinal 77-72 at the Marriott Center, with senior guard Spencer Johnson scoring 18 points.

“I am glad they picked us 13th. That means we are going to surprise some people and I think we are going to be a lot better than what people think we are going to be,” Johnson said in Kansas City, before the scrimmage that was closed to the public. “We are so excited to get out there and to prove that to ourselves and everyone else.”

‘Together, resilient and confident’

Johnson, 6-foot-5 and 195 pounds, is one of four seniors on the 16-player roster, along with walk-on Tredyn Christensen, Detroit Mercy transfer Noah Waterman and Jaxson Robinson, the 6-7 junior who transferred in from Arkansas last year.

“We are together. We are confident. We are resilient and we can shoot the lights out of the ball,” was Johnson’s early description of the 2023-24 Cougars.

It is no secret that Pope and his staff of Cody Fueger, Nick Robinson and Kahil Fennell plan to take full advantage of the 3-point shot to narrow the perceived talent gap BYU will have with other Big 12 teams and the best team on BYU’s nonconference schedule, No. 17 San Diego State.

The Cougars will host the Aztecs on Nov. 10. Other key nonleague contests are at Utah on Dec. 9 and vs. Arizona State on Nov. 23 in Las Vegas as part of the Vegas Showdown. Vanderbilt or North Carolina State are also in the draw.

“It is definitely a new challenge for all of us. None of us have ever been here before. It is going to be fun to come in here and compete against the best in the nation and see where we stack up and to do it together with these guys is a dream come true, honestly,” said Johnson, who averaged 11.1 points per game and shot 46% from 3-point range last year.

“It is exciting. It is a big undertaking obviously. It is the best basketball league in the country,” Johnson said. “But yeah, it gives us a lot of room to grow and a lot of room to see what we are made of, I guess.”

Who else is back?

The Cougars won’t lack for leadership and experience. Close to 70% of their scoring from 2022-23 is back, most notably Johnson, Hall, Traore and Robinson.

Expectations are that those four will make the starting lineup in the opener, along with newcomer Aly Khalifa, a 6-11 junior center who averaged 9.8 points and 5.3 rebounds at Charlotte last year. More on the native of Alexandria, Egypt, later.

Traore led the team in scoring (12.9) and rebounding (7.8) last year en route to earning all-WCC second-team honors. The native of Bamako, Mali, is one of 20 players on the 2024 Karl Malone Award Watch List, which goes to the top forward forward in Division I men’s basketball.

“This team feels like family,” Traore said in Kansas City when asked if the “Best Locker Room in America” slogan still applies. “We always support each other no matter what. We are a real brotherhood.”

Hall made 21 starts as a true freshman and led the team in assists, with 108. The former Utah Gatorade Player of the Year said the Cougars recognize the enormity of the challenge in the Big 12 but are taking a fearless approach this season.

“Faith over fear, absolutely, yeah. We have an attack mindset. We want to put our best foot forward and we want to go in there with no fear,” Hall said. “That’s the best way to play and we feel like when we play that way we are a very hard team to beat.”

Robinson, 6-7, 190, led BYU with 61 3-pointers last season, and averaged 8.5 points per game. He will be a key cog this year, because the Cougars want to fire up 3s every chance they get. Robinson made at least one 3 in 15 straight games last year.

“He understands what we are trying to accomplish. He understands where his fit and role is at a higher level. He has gained more confidence in himself and his teammates, which has allowed him to be more leadership-minded,” assistant coach Nick Robinson said of the big guard (no relation). … We have a lot of guys who are taking a greater understanding of player-led leadership as we head into this season.”

Other key returners are Waterman, junior guard Trey Stewart, junior forward Atiki Ally Atiki, sophomore guard Richie Saunders, and redshirt junior guard Trevin Knell, the Woods Cross High product who missed the entire 2022-23 season due to shoulder surgery.

Knell is regarded as the best shooter on the team, nicknamed the ‘Shot Doctor” by his teammates. He played in all 35 games in 2021-22 and averaged 6.4 points per game. 

“Trevin Knell has been really good (in training camp),” Pope said. “He is shooting 44% from 3 in live play so far, on (more than) 100 3s. We missed him last year. I think people are going to be really excited to have him back.”

Pope said Waterman “is playing at an elite level” in training camp and might be the most improved player on the team.

“Noah’s like a reborn human being, with how good he is,” Pope said. 

Robinson played mostly power forward last year, “but he has played a lot of point guard for us and a lot of two and three (positions) and he’s clearly super dangerous offensively.”

Guards Jared McGregor, Townsend Tripple, Tanner Hayhurst and Christensen are walk-ons; the Cougars enter the season with one available scholarship, which could be filled mid-year if the opportunity to get a difference-maker and the right fit presents itself, Nick Robinson said.

A big need for first-class newcomers

Obviously, Pope has hit the transfer portal hard the past few seasons as BYU has prepared for the giant leap forward in competition the Big 12 will bring. 

Landing Samford graduate transfer guard Ques Glover in May was seen as a huge get for the coach, but the honeymoon didn’t last. Reportedly dissatisfied with the NIL money and opportunities at BYU, Glover jumped back into the portal over the summer and eventually signed with fellow Big 12 member Kansas State.

“If you want to point the finger at why Ques left, it is on me because I didn’t get the job done,” Pope said in early August.

In early September, BYU signed former four-star recruit Marcus Adams Jr., a Southern California product who originally signed with Kansas and then moved on to Gonzaga, but never enrolled in Spokane.

The 6-8 Adams could add some much-needed size to the lineup, but is still waiting on the NCAA to grant his request for an eligibility waiver. Prospects of that happening are slim, according to Vanquishthefoe.com’s McCoombs.

How did BYU land Adams?

“I think that more than anything, Marcus was looking for BYU. … That might sound surprising. 

“But for this time in his life and the experiences he had had recently, he wanted (an experience) that is what BYU is,” Pope said. “I actually think BYU’s identity and uniqueness and standards, was more of a pull for him to come to BYU than the Big 12. … The Big 12 was probably not the No. 1 factor.”

Another newcomer, junior guard Dawson Baker, also did not play in the aforementioned scrimmage, or on the foreign tour, due to recent foot surgery. Baker is from Coto de Caza, California, and played three years at UC Irvine, where he was a two-time all-Big West honoree. He averaged 15.3 points a game last year for the Anteaters.

“He is a very smooth, tough basketball player. And he’s got a deep bag. He can get to his spots, he can score, and you can tell he has played the game of college basketball for a while,” Hall said of Baker. “It is really fun to play with him. He gives our team a lot and when he gets cooking, it is hard to stop.”

Said Pope: “This Dawson Baker is making a huge impact right now. He’s been really, really good. … We have a lot of guys who are going to have to contribute for us to be successful this year.”

The Cougars will also need a big year from Khalifa, an all-Conference USA honorable mention pick as a sophomore at Charlotte last year.

The new guys “have meshed really well, honestly,” Hall said. “Our coaches do an outstanding job of recruiting guys of high character, guys who are about the right things both on and off the court. We all share similar goals and morals and so we mesh well as a family. We look out for one another and we help keep each other accountable.”