BYU takes on Western Colorado in lone exhibition of 2025-26 season
The Cougars will take the floor under head coach Lee Cummard on Tuesday against the Western Colorado Mountaineers.
BYU Cougars || 0-0, 0-0 || Big 12 Conference
WHAT'S AT STAKE || With a win, BYU would notch its first victory, albeit an exhibition win, since Lee Cummard took over as the program’s eighth head coach on March 31, 2025. During the absence of then-head coach Jeff Judkins, Cummard served as the acting head coach for a three-game stint and went 3-0 with wins over No. 17 Florida State, No. 22 West Virginia and in-state rival Utah State.
PLAY HARD, PLAY RIGHT, PLAY TO WIN || In his first meeting with the team following his hiring, Cummard emphasized that results don’t come without hard work and that he was going to prioritize the team’s inputs this season and let the outcomes take care of themselves. Brinley Cannon spoke on the team’s mantra at Big 12 Media Day by saying, “Coach Lee has brought an emphasis on playing right, playing hard and playing to win. I think we’ve implemented that really well this offseason, and I’m excited to see how we can continue to grow on those gains as the season goes on.”
CLIMBING THE BIG 12 MOUNTAIN || Although the Cougars are focusing on inputs rather than outcomes this season, Cummard and his team have set some lofty goals for the 2025-26 campaign. At Big 12 Media Day, Coach Cummard said, “We haven’t done anything in the league in the first two years. We’ve been in a lot of close games, we’ve upset a few ranked opponents, but we’ve never won a game in the conference tournament. We’ve never finished in the top half of the league. So there are two [goals] right there that we want to strive for daily. We want to be playing late into the conference tournament and go to the NCAA Tournament as a member of the Big 12 Conference.”
NEW DYNAMIC DUO || The Cougar backcourt got some needed depth with the dynamic duo of freshmen Sydney Benally and Olivia Hamlin. Benally comes to BYU as a two-time New Mexico Gatorade Player of the Year and the 88th-ranked player in her class according to ESPN HoopGurlz rankings. Hamlin joins the Cougar roster as the 59th-ranked player by Prospects Nation for the class of 2025. She is also one of two players in Utah high school girls’ basketball to score over 2,500 points in her career.
Head Coach – Lee Cummard
- Alma Mater: BYU, 2009
- Division I Career Record: 0-0 || 1st Season
- Record at BYU: 0-0 || 1st Season