PROVO — Tuesday, BYU released its 2014-15 non-conference basketball schedule, and there are definitely some positive and negatives with it for the team and the fans.

Here are a few.

Home schedule

First and foremost, the home schedule finally has some decent games. Last year, BYU only had one interesting non-conference opponent at home in Iowa State. The Cougars played Stanford, Texas, Wichita State, Utah State, UMass and Oregon on the road or on a neutral court.

In 2013-14, Cougar fans received real "treats" with opponents such as Mount St. Mary’s, Colorado Mesa, North Texas and Prairie View A&M playing in the Marriott Center. This year, the Cougars face UMass, Stanford and Utah at home. My only complaint about these matchups is that both the Stanford and UMass games will be played when the majority of the student body will be out of town for Christmas.

Maui Invitational

Playing in Hawaii has got to be appealing to any college athlete. Besides catching some rays on the beautiful beaches of Maui, the competition should be terrific with noteworthy potential opponents in Arizona, Kansas State, Missouri, Pittsburgh and San Diego State.

It would be particularly fun to see the Cougars line up against the Aztecs. Cougar fans can still hear Kawai Leonard and other SDSU stars talking-trash after winning the Mountain West Conference Tournament against BYU in 2010, and SDSU fans still have yet to fully heal after watching their teams getting Jimmered and propelling Kyle Van Noy’s NFL draft stock.

Related:

BYU men's basketball 2014-15 non-conference schedule announced

BYU men's basketball has finalized its non-conference schedule, which features home games against three 2014 NCAA tournament qualifiers from outside Utah, three games versus in-state schools and the Maui Invitational.

There are, of course, some concerns about playing in the islands. BYU, just like every other team in the tournament, will have to deal with jet lag after the long flight and then play three games in three days. It will be interesting to see how their legs will hold up in the tournament and in the weeks following. Of particular interest will be to see how players recently returned from missionary service or from serious injury, like Kyle Collinsworth, will respond to the travel and the high volume of games in a short period of time.

Mixed schedule

As was the case last year, BYU will likely face some highly ranked and some dreadful competition in the non-conference season. After Cougar fans suffer through the team’s first three games that should be duller than watching paint dry against Long Beach State, Arkansas-Little Rock and Southern Virginia, the competition gets much tougher. After the SVU game, the Cougars do not face a single patsy in November and December besides perhaps the Hawaii Warriors, who still managed to win 20 games a year ago.

It is not surprising that the Cougars would play against some terrible competition. Every team around the nation does it for a variety of reasons — to build morale, to pad the win-loss record and to basically have a bye. The interesting thing about BYU’s schedule is that the patsy games are all within a week of each other. Teams often spread these games out, as previously mentioned, to have a glorified off day where they can rest their key players. Last year’s team seemed to get bogged down when playing so many difficult opponents in a row.

Will this year’s squad be able to handle the quality of competition?

Dylan Cannon is a regular KSL.com contributor and can be reached by email at dylancannon86@gmail.com.

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