Ohio State Buckeyes vs No. 25 BYU Cougars
Monday, November 2, 2026
9:00 PM ET, Delta Center (Salt Lake City, UT)
BYU is a 3.5-point favorite over Ohio State with a total of 160.5, and my play is Ohio State +3.5.
Here’s a fun little contradiction to start the season. The AP voters put BYU in the Top 25 and left Ohio State out. KenPom looked at the same two rosters and ranked the Buckeyes 18th and the Cougars 33rd. The betting market sided with the poll, pushing this line from BYU -1.5 at the open to -3.5. I’m siding with the math.
The “neutral” site is about as neutral as a family reunion. Let’s be honest about the setting. This is officially a neutral-site game in the Bad Boy Mowers Series, but it’s being played at the Utah Jazz’s arena, a short drive from Provo, with BYU penciled in for another game in the same building in December. Expect a sea of blue. That’s a big part of why the number has drifted toward the Cougars. But a crowd is worth a couple of points, not a full rating gap, and the numbers already had Ohio State as the slightly better team. KenPom’s own projection lands at Ohio State 82, BYU 81, a coin flip. Getting 3.5 on a coin flip is a gift.
Two rebuilds, one with a sturdier foundation. Both programs lost a first-round NCAA game last March, and both turned the roster over. BYU has it worse. AJ Dybantsa and his 25.5 points a night are gone, Richie Saunders is gone, and Kevin Young welcomes 10 new faces around point guard Robert Wright III. The new guys can really shoot. Collin Chandler, Tyler Betsey, Jake Wahlin and Jaxon Kohler hit 39% of their threes last season. “I don’t think there’s any replacement for shooting,” Young said. “There just isn’t.” Fair enough. The problem is the other end. BYU gave up 82.9 points a game in Big 12 play last season, and in an exhibition at UNLV the Rebels’ guards got into the paint far too often. That’s the same door Ohio State wants to walk through.
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Ohio State’s backcourt is built to punish that. Jake Diebler’s team is long on guards who can get downhill. Cal transfer Justin Pippen averaged 14.2 points and 4.6 assists last season and lives in passing lanes. Amare Bynum, who torched Butler for 23 in the final exhibition, gives the Buckeyes a bruising small-ball option at the five. Then there’s five-star freshman Anthony Thompson, the program’s highest-rated recruit since Jared Sullinger, debuting opposite BYU’s own five-star, Bruce Branch III. On the defensive end, both major rating systems grade Ohio State as the better defense, KenPom by a wide margin, and that matters more in a first game when the offenses are still learning each other’s names.
And history is on the Buckeyes’ side for whatever it’s worth on opening night. Ohio State is 105-21 in season openers and hasn’t lost one since 2003.
Why I could be wrong. The whole bet leans on John Mobley Jr. The Preseason All-Big Ten guard rolled his ankle late in the Butler exhibition, and as of Friday Diebler wasn’t ready to rule anyone in or out. Mobley hit 41% of his threes last season and finished high school at Utah’s Wasatch Academy, so this one should mean something to him. If he’s out or hobbled, Ohio State loses its best shooter, and I’d pass. The glass is another worry. Ohio State got outrebounded by 19 combined in two exhibitions, and Kohler is the best big man on the floor. He had 10 boards against these Buckeyes in just 17 minutes last season. And the Buckeyes lost all four games they played against ranked teams outside the Schottenstein Center last season.
Projected score: BYU 80, Ohio State 79. The Cougars get the crowd and maybe the win, but I can’t lay points with a defense this unproven against a team the ratings like more. Take the points, and if 4 shows up before tip, grab it.
The Pick: Ohio State +3.5
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