BYU men’s basketball tips off its highly anticipated 2025-26 season with an exhibition game against Nebraska in Lincoln Saturday.

Top recruit AJ Dybantsa and the Cougars enter this year’s basketball season as the eighth ranked program in the preseason AP poll and will begin their season in an exhibition game against the Cornhuskers of Nebraska.

Nebraska enters this season coming off a 21-14 campaign led by head coach Fred Hoiberg.

Despite finishing 12th in the Big 10 conference, the Cornhuskers still made an appearance in the postseason. While they didn’t go dancing in the NCAA Tournament, Nebraska competed in the first ever College Basketball Crown tournament where the Cornhuskers defeated Arizona State, Georgetown, Boise State and finally UCF, earning them the title of the College Basketball Crown champions.

Nebraska against UCF in the 2025 College Basketball Crown championship game

Photo by Nebraska Athletics

Saturday marks the sixth meeting between the Cougars and Cornhuskers, with BYU leading the series 4-1. The last meeting between the two programs came in December of 2009 in the Las Vegas Classic, where BYU ended with a 88-66 victory. Prior to this matchup, the last contests between the two schools came in the 1930s.

“What I’ve seen is length, athleticism, shooting, they’re the whole package,” Hoiberg said about this year’s BYU squad earlier this week. “Their ranking is very well deserved and I think that team is going to be there at the end this year.”

In spite of its historical struggles against BYU, Nebraska has seen victory in its last three matchups against Big 12 teams, with two of those coming last year in the College Basketball Crown. The Cornhuskers also defeated Kansas State 62-46 in 2023.

Another aspect in favor of the Cornhuskers is their 6-1 exhibition record under Hoiberg, with their only loss stemming from Colorado in 2022. While this year’s BYU team is a much higher caliber unit than previous exhibition opponents, Nebraska will build off its momentum and high win percentage in exhibition matches as they take on the Cougars.

Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg

Photo by Joseph Cress, Iowa City Press – Citizen, USA TODAY NETWORK

Hoiberg also announced his starting lineup for Saturday’s exhibition during Wednesday’s press conference. Guard’s Jamarques Lawrence and Cale Jacobsen will head the backcourt with forwards Pryce Sandfort, Berke Büyüktuncel and Reink Mast leading the front.

Mast, a former All-Big Ten forward, will make his return after missing the entirety of last year’s season due to knee surgery. The Dutch native averaged 12.3 points in his last season and led the Cornhuskers in rebounds and assists in the 2023-24 season. Standing at 6-10, the senior will look to bounce back following his year off.

Senior Connor Essegian, Nebraska’s top scorer, also returns this season following a historic performance last season. Essegian hit 78 3-pointer’s last season, the highest amount under the Hoiberg era, and surfaced as one of the Big Ten’s leading sixth men averaging 10.7 points a game.

Due to the nature of an exhibition game, Hoiberg is expected to start a high percentage of his roster as the Cornhuskers navigate the depth chart before regular season play.

“We’re going to give a lot of guys an opportunity to get out there and see what they can do,” Hoiberg said. “We’ve had guys step up. I’ve been really impressed with a couple guys who have really emerged going into this game … We’ve got a lot of guys that have shown they deserve an opportunity to show what they can do and fight for rotation minutes. There’s a good chance we’ll play ten, maybe 11 guys.”

Nebraska’s sixth-man guard Connor Essegian

Photo by Nebraska Athletics

Tip-off is set for 11 a.m. MDT in the Pinnacle Bank Arena, with streaming available on BIG+.