SALT LAKE CITY — In the new age of college basketball exhibition games, where power-conference teams can play high-powered opponents for extra cash instead of the previous days of secret scrimmages and Division II warmups, it’s hard to know what to take away from BYU men’s basketball’s first unofficial games.
The Cougars are officially 0-0 before opening the season a week from Monday against Villanova in Las Vegas, but pulled off their first unofficial win of the season with a 78-76 result over No. 25 North Carolina at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.
AJ Dybantsa continued his meteoric ascent against the Heels, scoring 18 points with eight rebounds, three blocked shots and three steals; and Rob Wright III added 12 points and five assists in 32 minutes — by far the most of the preseason campaign after he didn’t play in the second half of a 1-point exhibition loss at Nebraska six days ago.
“That’s why we scheduled this game, and the games that we have, as well,” said BYU’s Kevin Young, who was the only BYU official made available to the media after the game. “It was exactly what we needed.”
That the Cougars came away with the win is noteworthy, though it wasn’t a win and wouldn’t have happened had Keba Keita — who finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds and a pair of steals — didn’t block Sam Trimble’s buzzer-beating drive that would’ve forced overtime.
North Carolina coach Hubert Davis said before the game he “wasn’t sure” who would take the final shot in such a scenario, and perhaps he found an answer Friday — though that attempt didn’t go to Caleb Wilson, the former five-star recruit and No. 1 player in Georgia whose unofficial debut against fellow top-recruit Dybantsa sent tickets soaring as high as $300 for the non-counting result.
Still, UNC wanted to win. At least, their fifth-year successor of legendary coach Roy Williams did.
“Whether it’s shootaround, pickup, camp game, I want to win,” Davis said. “But there were a lot of things I was really happy with.”
Wilson had a game-high 22 points and 10 rebounds for the Tar Heels, who out-shot BYU at 51.7% but converted just 4-of-19 3-pointers and gave away 19 turnovers for 16 points.
That, perhaps, is among the biggest takeaways for Young, who continues to be impressed by Dybantsa and Wright. He knew what he had in Keita, and got 14 points on just 4-of-12 shooting from returning top scorer Richie Saunders, who went 4-of-12 from the field and 2-of-9 from deep.
Dybantsa had 11 points in the first half, including knocking down his first five free-throw attempts and finishing 6-of-7 from the charity stripe. Kennard “Moo” Davis, Jr. added 8 points, including a key 3-pointer in the second half that sent most of the announced crowd of 9,030 fans that mostly filled the lower bowl of the 18,175-seat home of the NBA’s Utah Jazz to their feet.
That BYU could figure out a way to win while shooting 20% from 3-point range may be notable. Shooting will eventually come — perhaps, but it has under Young so far — but the ability to find other ways to beat top-tier opponents will be necessary in the “toughest college basketball conference in the country,” the “no toy poodle league” that Houston’s Kelvin Sampson called the Big 12 last year.
In that regard, turning 19 turnovers into 16 points will certainly help. So, too, will a 44-38 disparity in points in the paint.
“We had 18 offensive rebounds as well on a night when it felt like we couldn’t make any threes,” Young said. “I think there will be nights when we really need to rely on our length, and I think it shows up with forcing turnovers and rebounding as well.”
BYU guard Kennard Davis Jr. (30) holds his follow-through on his made three-pointer during an NCAA men’s basketball exhibition game against North Carolina held at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. (Photo: Isaac Hale, Deseret News)
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
