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No. 20 ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ (15-6, 9-1) at BYU (15-6, 6-4) | Marriott Center, Provo, Utah — 9 p.m., Tuesday — ESPN — 1290-AM

PROBABLE STARTERS

ARIZONA

G Jaden Bradley (6-3 junior)

G Caleb Love (6-4 senior)

F Anthony Dell’Orso (6-6 junior)

F Trey Townsend (6-6 senior)

C Tobe Awaka (6-8 junior)

BYU

G Edor Demin (6-9 freshman)

G Trevin Knell (6-5 senior)

F Richie Saunders (6-5 junior)

F Mawot Mag (6-7 senior)

C Keba Keita (6-8 junior)

How they match up

Series history: ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ has a 20-19 record against its former WAC rival but the teams haven’t played since Jimmer Fredette led the Cougars to a pair of wins over the Wildcats during the first two seasons of the Sean Miller era (2009-10 and 2010-11). On Dec. 28, 2009, Fredette set the still-standing McKale Center single-game scoring record with 49 points. Fredette dropped another 33 on the Wildcats a year later in Salt Lake City.

BYU overview: Kevin Young left the Phoenix Suns as their associate head coach to take over a program that won 23 games and reached the NCAA Tournament last season under Mark Pope, who took off for Kentucky. Two starters and three other key players remained, while Young added two transfers and four freshmen to round out a team that was picked to finish ninth in the Big 12.

So far the Cougars sit in a tie for seventh place, having generally lost games they were expected to lose and winning those they were not, though BYU beat Baylor 93-89 on Jan. 18 in Provo. They went 9-2 in a nonconference schedule KenPom rates the 20th weakest in Division I, losing to Ole Miss and Providence while beating N.C. State for its best nonconference win.

While the Cougars’ nonconference opponents make assessing season-long stats difficult, they are running the nation’s 16th most efficient offense, scoring an average of 119.8 points per 100 possessions. Their well-balanced offense features 58.5% shooting from two-point range (9th nationally) and 37.5% from 3-point range (37th). They take nearly half of their shots from beyond the 3-point arc (47.6%), the 21st highest ratio of 3s to overall field goals in D-I. BYU isn’t a great free-throw shooting team (68.9%), however.

Wings Richie Saunders (45.3%) and Trevin Knell (44.4%) are the Cougars’ top 3-point shooting threats; Saunders leads BYU in scoring (15.4) while Knell is third (10.3). Unicorn-ish 6-9 point guard Egor Demin is the Cougars’ second leading scorer (10.7) while also averaging 5.9 assists a game with a 2-1 assist-turnover ratio. His assist average ranks third in the Big 12 and 27th nationally.

Saunders can play either forward spot, sliding to the four in a smaller lineup, while Australian Mawot Mag starts at power forward after transferring from Rutgers. The Cougars can also drop the ball inside to big-bodied Mali natives Fousseyni Traore and Keba Keita, a transfer from Utah who had 18 points and seven rebounds for the Utes in their triple-overtime win over the Wildcats in Salt Lake City last season.

The Cougars mix up their styles defensively and they rank sixth nationally in defensive rebounding percentage, collecting the ball on 76.4% of opponents’ misses. Keita ranks in the Top 10 nationally in both offensive (17.4) and defensive (38.7) rebound percentage, while Traore isn’t far behind at 13.0 on the offensive end and 23.8% defensively.

He said it: “They’re up-tempo, they share the basketball, shoot 3s and they’ve got two big horses inside who can score in the paint. Certainly on the offensive end, they’re well-tuned.

“(Keita) is a powerful player who can score around the basket, he’s an aggressive defender. He’s a load in terms of being a tremendous athlete who really can defend around the rim as well. (Traore) can bull his way to the basket and hit shots in the paint area. He gives him another wide body in there that can take up some space, both offensively and defensively. You have to pay attention to him and try to defend him around the basket.

“They play man and can play zone, they mix it up. They do a lot of different things on the defensive end to that you have to contend with.�

— UA assistant coach Steve Robinson, who scouted the Cougars.

Key players

BYU – Richie Saunders

While Demin is the guy NBA scouts are most focused on, the Wildcats’ defense probably shouldn’t look away from Saunders. The third-year Cougar forward is averaging 19.9 points in his past seven games while shooting 53.5% from 3-point range and 81.8% from the free throw line.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ — KJ Lewis

Somewhat lost in the Caleb Love celebrations over the past week is the fact that Lewis’ defense helped keep Iowa State in check and help limit ASU to just 36.8% shooting. Having increasingly embraced a defensive stopper -type of role, the sophomore guard is likely to keep plenty busy against BYU’s perimeter offense.

SIDELINES

Love picked up Flagrant 2

While it wasn’t immediately clear why officials tossed ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s Caleb Love out of the Wildcats’ game at ASU on Saturday, the Big 12 clarified late Sunday that he and ASU’s BJ Freeman both picked up Flagrant 2 fouls that carry an automatic ejection.

Both Love and ASU’s BJ Freeman were ejected with 30 seconds left in the Wildcats’ 81-72 win on Saturday at Tempe after Freeman head-butted Love and a heated exchange followed.

Officials ruled over the public-address system that Freeman was ejected for a Flagrant 2 foul but said only that Love “was also ejected,� leading to speculation that Love might have been tossed for picking up two technical fouls during his response. A Big 12 spokesman said Sunday that both Freeman and Love were assessed Flagrant 2 fouls.

While Love’s response did not appear to include contact on Freeman, the NCAA’s definition of a Flagrant 2 foul also includes “extreme unsporting conduct� without contact during a live or dead ball.

Saying the Wildcats won with “no class,â€� ASU coach Bobby Hurley said Freeman’s head-butting resulted from chatter from ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ players.

“Words that were said back and forth led to the moment where Freeman lost it, lost his cool, because of the constant talk that was allowed to go on,� Hurley said.

When told of Hurley’s comments, Love said he didn’t know anything about it and that the Wildcats always respected their opponents.

“It was just two competitors going at it,� Love said. “It escalated and the refs made a call. … We just compete. It was a great atmosphere, great game and we came out on top.�

Slo-mo schedule

Among the many changes that Kevin Young has faced since leaving the Phoenix Suns to become BYU’s head coach include the daily recruiting headaches that college coaching can bring, rule changes, the transfer portal, NIL and generally working with younger people.

There’s also just the schedule.

“Honestly, I woke up today and was like, ‘Man, we have 10 games left. That’s crazy compared to what I was used to,’� Young said Monday. “I told my wife that and she’s like, ‘What? Are you serious?’

“It’s just that we’re just used to just going on forever. I like that because it just turns the intensity up.�

BYUtv highlights Snowden era

In part because BYU and UA were WAC rivals from 1962-78, and because Fred Snowden led the Wildcats to success during that era, BYUtv interviewed Snowden’s daughter and former Wildcat standouts Bob Elliott and Joe Nehls for a podcast in its “Big Stories� series.

“It was always very competitive,� Elliott said of UA-BYU games when he played them in the 1970s.

BYUtv filmed the interviews with Elliott and Nehls in the African American Museum of Southern ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, where Elliott is board chair. The podcast can be found on BYUtv’s YouTube site.

Numbers game

7: BYU’s ranking in average attendance (16,790) nationally (first in the Big 12).

8: Current BYU players who served LDS missions, including three (Saunders, Dallin Hall and Trey Stewart) who were forced to serve in the U.S. during the COVID pandemic.

28: Seasons since an ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ player scored as many points at ASU as Caleb Love did on Saturday (27); Michael Dickerson scored 32 points on Jan. 11, 1997.

— Bruce Pascoe