Report: BYU Basketball to Host Kansas in Marriott Center

The Big 12 hasn’t released any basketball schedule details yet, but we may have got one early Saturday morning from an ESPN analyst. Fran Fraschilla is the main ESPN color commentator for Big 12 hoops and hinted that BYU will host Kansas in Provo as part of ESPN’s first “Big Monday” of the season. Using previous years as proxy for when Big Monday debuted, that game would happen January 15 or 22.

Full transparency, I haven’t confirmed that is when BYU will play Kansas. I reached out to some BYU sources and they didn’t know details of the Big 12 schedule. I took the tweet as that is when the game will happen, but you could interpret it as Fraschilla just looking forward to a date in the distant future (although that seems oddly specific).

ESPN’s “Big Monday” is on the main ESPN channel and features a doubleheader with an ACC and Big 12 game. The Big 12 conference season should start the week of January 1, so this would be a few weeks into BYU’s inaugural Big 12 season. The Big 12 will play 18 conference games, meaning teams will play 8 teams once and 5 teams twice. We don’t know if BYU will play the Jayhawks once or twice, but it sounds like BYU will get the Jayhawks at least in Provo. If we’re being honest, seeing Kansas just one time this upcoming season may be for the best as the Jayhawks are considered by many to the preseason #1 team.

BYU could very well get smoked, but the atmosphere should be one of the best the Marriott Center has ever seen. BYU annually has one of the best home court advantages in college basketball, but having a blue blood like Kansas in Provo for the first time in over 60 years will ratchet that up a few notches. BYU is 4-1 all-time versus Kansas, with the lone win coming in December 1960 in Provo.