AJ Dybantsa’s introduction to college basketball came Saturday, and the possible No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft went for 30 points. In the past, the typical setting for a college freshman’s debut would have been a home exhibition game, a Division II opponent and a blowout win. Or a scrimmage not open to the public.
But this one was on the road at Nebraska, and the No. 8 Cougars lost in front of a near-sellout crowd of 14,992.
What made such a game possible was a change approved last January by the NCAA’s men’s basketball oversight committee that allowed teams to play two exhibition games against any four-year school. In the past, for BYU to play at Nebraska, it would have had to be a “secret scrimmage”, meaning the game would be conducted behind closed doors without official scoring.
https://t.co/Q5dbZHLENQ pic.twitter.com/Qur8Z4E8RF
— BYU Men’s Basketball (@BYUMBB) October 18, 2025
In recent years, teams could play each other in charity games, but it required a waiver from the NCAA. Thanks to the resulting change, teams can now play anyone and do what they want with the money earned.
Welcome to the new college basketball preseason.
That’s why this weekend is like an early Feast Week, with Top 25 teams playing each other across the country, including BYU hosting a game in the Utah Jazz’s arena:
• No. 1 Purdue at No. 9 Kentucky (Friday, 6 p.m. ET)• No. 19 Kansas at No. 11 Louisville (Friday, 7:30 p.m. ET)• No. 25 North Carolina at No. 8 BYU (Friday, 9 p.m. ET in Salt Lake City)• No. 7 Michigan at No. 5 St. John’s in Madison Square Garden (Saturday, 7 p.m. ET)• No. 6 Duke at No. 18 Tennessee (Sunday, 7 p.m. ET)
It’s good for the sport, but some coaches think it doesn’t go far enough.
“Honestly, I wish it was more like the NBA,” said BYU coach Kevin Young, who spent eight years as an NBA assistant. “I hate practicing for four or five straight months where you’re just going against each other.”
Young is not alone. The consensus from coaches is that they would like to play more. Four has been the suggested amount, and it could be a team-by-team choice. NBA teams, for instance, can play up to six preseason games but are not required to play any.
Some coaches still elect to play old-school “secret scrimmages.” Those games, while losing the crowd and fanfare, allow coaches to add an extra segment, where both teams could, for example, play zone or agree to play their end-of-bench players.
But the secrecy part of the old system was silly, because …
“The score is still gonna get out either way,” Texas Tech star JT Toppin said, and he knows from experience. The Red Raiders, ranked 10th, lost 89-87 earlier this month to unranked Oklahoma.
What’s different when the game is played in public, and sometimes on television, is that it’s clear if a coach played his best players or lengthened his rotation, or if he experimented with a different type of defense.
And while most coaches are willing to coach somewhat differently in an exhibition setting, a majority are still trying to win the game.
“I’m not looking at this as a lab experiment,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “They keep score.”
Inevitably, scores prompt overreactions. Sometimes the results will give clues. Last year, for instance, preseason No. 1 Kansas lost at Arkansas. That was an early sign the Jayhawks weren’t going to be elite.
There have also been some surprising results thus far, perhaps a sign that it’s as hard as ever to make predictions in college basketball because of all the roster movement.
Among those that have raised an eyebrow: Nebraska knocking off BYU (with BYU starting point guard Rob Wright III on a minutes restriction) and Oklahoma State beating No. 20 Auburn in overtime in what was essentially a road game in Birmingham, Ala.
“We’re starved for college basketball scores, so we’re always going to overreact,” Oklahoma State coach Steve Lutz said. “If you’re an Oklahoma State fan and you watched our team last year, we had a hard time scoring the ball. So you look at the score and you look at the stats, you go, OK, well, they shoot the ball better, they still turn it over way too much, but they shoot it better. They rebounded it better. Can you carry that over? If you can, usually it’s the makings of a good team.”
Oklahoma State beat Auburn in an exhibition game in Birmingham. The next day, Alabama and Florida State played in the same arena. Brandon Sumrall / Getty Images
There are also cautionary tales of trying to read too much into a result. Take two years ago, when Purdue lost 81-77 in overtime at Arkansas. The Boilermakers made the national title game. The Razorbacks? They won 16 games and didn’t play in the postseason.
“I give (Matt) Painter some credit,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer, who takes his team to Tennessee on Sunday. “He said, some of his best teams, they’ve gone on the road and lost — and it’s helped them get even more prepared for the season. And so again, that’s not my intention, but I do know, win or lose, whether we play great, whether we play poorly, we are going to learn a lot.”
Also, in an era of college hoops where every program is money-hungry to help pay for its roster, these extra opportunities to collect ticket revenue matter. Creighton announced a crowd of 15,571 for its exhibition against Iowa State last weekend, not far off from its regular-season average of 17,366. Butler had 7,887 fans in for a game last weekend against Notre Dame. It averaged 7,714 per home game last season.
Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said that’s why he plans to play at least one public exhibition in the future.
“That’s kind of (how) everybody looks at this is like, what’s the financial benefit to playing an exhibition game, and can you put it in a venue with the right opponent that you can draw people that would want to go during football season?” McCasland said. “And that’s kind of the difficulty.”
College basketball fans want to see good teams play each other in both the preseason and nonconference games. Because the NCAA Tournament selection committee has emphasized strength of schedule, nonconference schedules are getting better.
And because coaches do not want to get exposed in those games, they’re testing themselves in these preseason settings.
In July, John Calipari even floated the idea of summer basketball in an exhibition setting. And now that the players are paid, could that be next?
“We’re getting swallowed by everything else, and it can’t just be the tournament,” Calipari told reporters in July. “In the summer, in July, it’s a space where we could take over. Right now, you have the NBA Summer League. Why don’t we have something?”
With as much turnover as there is on college basketball rosters, teams need the practice. And giving fans something they actually want is never a bad idea.
