LBSU at BYU (Friday, 6 p.m. in Provo, Utah)
Last year, BYU finished 27-8 with a 14-2 mark in the Mountain West Conference. The Cougars advanced to the NCAA Tournament as the No. 8-seed and dropped a 67-62 decision to Texas A&M.
They return two starters including All-American Lee Cummard, who scored 15.8 points per game last season and grabbed 6.3 rebounds per contest. He withdrew his name from the NBA Draft to return to Provo for his senior season.
Jonathan Tavernari, a junior forward, is back for the Cougars as well. He poured in 13.1 PPG and a school-record 88 3-pointers last year.
As if taking a young team on the road to start the season was not a big enough challenge, consider this: BYU hasn’t lost at home since 2005. Their 47-game winning streak at the Marriott Center is tops in the country and they are 108-10 there this millennium, which also includes a 44-game unbeaten run.
LBSU at Wisconsin (Sunday, 1 p.m. in Madison, Wisc.)
The Wisconsin Badgers captured the Big Ten title last season with a 31-5 record. They are one of only five Division I schools that have won 30 games in back-to-back seasons and the other four — UCLA, Kansas, Memphis and UNC — were all in the Final Four in April.
The Badgers bring back four of their six main contributors from last year’s squad that got bounced in the Sweet 16.
Junior guards Jason Bohannon and Trevon Hughes will control the backcourt, while senior forwards Joe Krabbenhoft and Marcus Landry anchor the middle.
The Badgers enter the season ranked No. 21 in the USA Today/ESPN Poll and No. 25 in the AP Poll.
The game will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network, channel 610 on DirecTV.