Scrimmage Against Cal Will Be Win For BYU Regardless Of Outcome

PROVO, Utah – BYU basketball welcomes in a Pac-12 foe this weekend. You’re probably thinking, basketball games are already starting? No, it’s not a game but rather a closed scrimmage.

Each year college basketball programs have two exhibitions slots they can use to either have an open exhibition against DII/DIII/NAIA teams or closed scrimmages against D-1 programs. BYU is doing one of each this season in Mark Pope’s first year as head coach.

#BYU basketball takes on the Cal Golden Bears tomorrow in a closed scrimmage. Mark Pope feels this will be a win regardless of the outcome. @kslsports https://t.co/v9FoVXUHur pic.twitter.com/F00Hg3RmKx

— Mitch Harper (@Mitch_Harper) October 25, 2019

BYU will take on the Cal Golden Bears on Saturday in Provo. The scrimmage is closed to fans, media, and everyone not part of the BYU and Cal basketball programs. With a month of practices already in the books, BYU’s new head man is excited to see someone new challenge his guys.

“I’m really excited because it’s either going to give us a lot of confidence or it’s going to humble us and either one of those is a huge win,” said Pope.

There have been a lot of twists and turns with this BYU basketball program throughout the off-season and it’s led to a lot more questions rather than answers as the season opener on November 5th is quickly approaching. The scrimmage against Cal can maybe start to answer some of those questions.

“I’m just excited to play somebody and kind of see who we are, where we are, and how we feel and how we fit together,” Pope said. “We’ll give some part of the session just to the guys that can actually play in a game right now. That’s going to be fun for us. We didn’t really do that in Italy, so this will be the first time we compete against someone else with the roster that’s available to us.”

BYU’s roster is thin at the moment. With Yoeli Childs serving a nine-game suspension to open the season next month, the Cougars will have to get used to life without their star in this scrimmage against the Bears.

Cal Head Coach gave Mark Pope his start in coaching

When BYU squares off against Cal on Saturday in the scrimmage, Pope will be going up against one of his mentors in Cal Head Coach Mark Fox. Fox and Pope worked together at Georgia where Pope served as the Operations Manager for the program, but their relationship dates farther back than that.

“It’s Coach Fox bringing his team up here and he’s the guy that brought me into this business. We’ve known each other forever,” said Pope. “He was a graduate assistant at Washington and we stayed after practice every single day together, just the two of us. Him as a GA and me as a player. I love him dearly and so the fact that he’s going to be up here and we get to see if we can get our teams ready in the same gym together for a day is super exciting to me.”

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for KSLsports.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12-3 pm) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.