No. 23 BYU is set to host No. 6 Iowa State at the Marriott Center on Saturday, February 21, with tipoff scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Mountain Time. The game will be broadcast on ESPN, featuring commentary by Dave Flemming and Sean Farnham.
This meeting marks the eleventh all-time matchup between BYU and Iowa State, dating back to their first contest in December 1931. Since joining the Big 12, BYU has won three of four games against Iowa State. Under head coach Kevin Young, now in his second year, BYU holds a 2-0 record against the Cyclones. Both wins occurred during a nine-game win streak last season, including an 88-85 double overtime victory at Hilton Coliseum and a 96-92 win in the Big 12 Championship quarterfinals where Richie Saunders scored a team-high 23 points.
In those games against Iowa State last season, Keba Keita averaged eight points, twelve and a half rebounds, and two blocks per game while shooting over fifty-eight percent from the field. During the double overtime win, Keita collected fifteen rebounds, tying a program record for offensive boards with nine. Mihailo Boskovic contributed ten points and five rebounds in Kansas City.
Since joining the Big 12 Conference, BYU’s record against ranked league opponents stands at six wins and eleven losses—three wins at home and three away. Iowa State has been ranked in every meeting with BYU since that move; this weekend’s game is no exception as they hold sixth place in the AP Poll.
Head coach Kevin Young is also six for eleven against ranked opponents since moving from the NBA to college basketball. Only one of those victories took place at home—a thirty-four point win over No. 23 Kansas last February.
According to Opta StatsPass, BYU’s record at home versus Top Ten teams is two wins and sixteen losses; their last such victory was over No. 2 Gonzaga on February 22, 20220. Historically against teams ranked sixth in the AP Poll, BYU is two for eight overall and winless at home across four games.
Defensively, BYU ranks twenty-sixth nationally with an average of nearly five blocks per game this season—their best ranking since finishing top fifty in blocks during the 2016–17 campaign. Abdullah Ahmed and Keba Keita each have twenty-three blocks so far this conference season; both are close to entering the program’s single-season top ten for conference play.
AJ Dybantsa was recently added to another national watch list as one of thirty players named to Jersey Mike’s Naismith Trophy Late-Season Team: “PLAYER OF THE YEAR LATE-SEASON TEAM pic.twitter.com/I3qotmeQZj” —BYU Men’s Basketball (@BYUMBB) February 19, 2026
Dybantsa has also appeared on several other award lists including Wooden Award Late Midseason Top Twenty, Wayman Tisdale Award, Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Midseason Top Ten and Oscar Robertson Trophy lists.
On Wednesday night Dybantsa surpassed Danny Ainge’s freshman scoring record set during the late seventies by reaching six hundred forty-four points through twenty-six games—fourteen more than Ainge’s previous mark from forty-eight years ago. With five regular season games left he currently holds fourteenth place for most points scored in a single season by any player in program history.
Dybantsa tied Kansas State’s Michael Beasley (2007–08) and Oklahoma’s Trae Young (2017–18) for most thirty-five point performances by a freshman according to StatHead data—with five such outings this year—and now holds the program record for most thirty-point performances by a freshman.
