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PROVO — The toughest college basketball conference in America is officially coming to the Wasatch Front.
The Big 12 Conference released the final conference pairings and schedule Tuesday, putting a formal stamp on the Cougars' inaugural season as members of the conference. But did the league do BYU any favors?
Not hardly. But that was to be expected, in many ways.
"This Big 12 schedule is going to be a gauntlet," BYU second-year women's coach Amber Whiting said. "We have a great team that has worked extremely hard this summer to build the chemistry needed to be ready to face this challenge head-on. There are going to be challenges that come during the conference season and I am excited to see how our women respond and improve because of it."
The league schedule — whose pairings were announced earlier with pairings of home-and-away, home-only and away-only matchups spread out across the conference — includes an 18-game schedule that will be broadcast on the Big 12 Now on ESPN+, unless a national media partner picks up the game, on a mostly Saturday-Tuesday rotation.
For men's basketball, it starts with fellow Big 12 newcomer Cincinnati visiting the Marriott Center on Saturday, Jan. 6, the first-ever meeting between the two programs in Provo and the first meeting since the 2001 NCAA Tournament. It will also be the second-straight visit to Utah County for the Bearcats, who lost at Utah Valley in the quarterfinals of the NIT a year ago in Orem.
But it gets tough in a hurry.
Three of the Cougars' next four opponents are on the road, followed by back-to-back home games with Houston and Texas, which were ranked No. 2 and No. 5 respectively in the final Associated Press Top 25 of the 2022-23 season.
After a Sunflower State doubleheader and trip to historic Phog Allen Fieldhouse on Feb. 27, BYU ends the regular season with two of three home games against TCU and Oklahoma State, around a trip to Iowa State.
The full schedule includes 10 teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament — potentially 11, with North Carolina State — including nine teams that earned single-digit seeds.
"We understand the level of competition that is coming our way," BYU assistant coach Nick Robinson told BYUtv. "For us, coach Pope has been talking about how every single day matters. One stop really, really matters, depending on the game you play and the situation you are in. The expectation for us is to come out and compete every single day in practice to prepare us for the Big 12."
BYU women's basketball starts conference play with a road game at TCU, but hosts two of the first three at home that includes the only game against Oklahoma on Jan. 3 in the Marriott Center. That's after a nonconference schedule that includes Power Five tilts with Wake Forest and Utah, as well as in-state rivals Weber State, Utah Valley and Utah State.
"We're not afraid to be joining the Big 12," BYU wing Kaylee Smiler told BYUtv, "because when you're prepared, you know what the game plan is and what you can do."
One highlight? The regular-season finale March 2 in the Moody Arena in Austin, Texas, against former BYU guard Shaylee Gonzales in her final season of eligibility with Texas.
The Big 12 women's basketball tournament will be held March 7-12, with the men's tournament to follow March 12-16 at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.
See the full schedule for both men's and women's basketball below.
