A mariachi band greeted the BYU basketball team as it arrived at its San Diego hotel Tuesday afternoon, and the plan for Wednesday was for the wives and children of the coaching and support staff to visit the SeaWorld theme park.

“We’ve had a good run at home, playing against teams we had taken care of business against, and now we’re looking forward to taking the show on the road.”

— BYU coach Kevin Young

A Thanksgiving feast was planned for later Wednesday evening.

But make no mistake, head coach Kevin Young said in a media conference call Wednesday morning, the Cougars are in the so-called “America’s Finest City” for one reason and one reason only: to win the Rady’s Children Invitational at UC San Diego’s LionTree Arena.

While most of America will be eating turkey, mashed potatoes and all the other side dishes, unranked BYU (5-0) will face No. 23 Ole Miss (5-0) on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. MST on Fox Sports 1. On the other side are Purdue (5-1) and North Carolina State (5-0).

The championship game is scheduled for Friday at 4:00 p.m. MST, while the third-place game is at 1:30 p.m

“As I told our players, this is a business trip. Don’t be confused. “This is a business trip and that’s why we’re here to take care of business,” Young said after describing the welcome reception and “giving a shout out to the mariachi band, which was a pretty nice gesture,” and noted that BYU had a “fairly large” tour group.

Ole Miss coach Chris Beard was equally enthusiastic, saying many of the Rebels’ players had never been to the West Coast before but would be focused on an undefeated BYU team before enjoying the sights and sounds of San Diego .

“This game presents us with a lot of challenges,” Beard said. “The way I describe it to our players is this: We’re going to be playing a lot of games like this against a lot of really talented teams in the SEC this year. I put BYU in the same category.”

Neither team has faced an opponent as talented as the other in the 2024/25 season.

Ole Miss, which is averaging 80.8 points and allowing 63.0 points, has Long Island (90-60), Grambling (66-64), South Alabama (64-54), Colorado State (84-69) and defeated Oral Roberts (100-68).

BYU, which averages 91.0 points and allows 59.8, has Central Arkansas (88-50), UC Riverside (86-80), Queens (99-55), Idaho (95-71) and Mississippi Valley Defeated State (87-43).

“We’ve had a good run at home, playing teams we’ve taken care of business against, and now we’re excited to take the show on the road,” Young said. “This is a great tournament here in San Diego. Of course a beautiful city. I’m just really looking forward to playing against some of these bigger teams that are in the tournament.

It’s clear that the next three games will go a long way in showing how good this BYU team really is; Next up after the tournament is an away game in Rhode Island against Providence College of the Big East. The Friars went 5-0 heading into Wednesday’s game against Oklahoma in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas.

Young said five games against mostly overmatched teams, all at the Marriott Center in Provo, showed the staff that the ingredients for a successful season were there, but there was still work to be done in areas such as perimeter defense.

“I think our cohesion and our unselfishness really worked for us offensively,” he said. “I think defensively we made progress and had different priorities. Now we have to play against guys who can test us a little bit more in that regard and that will be a good thing for us.”

Like almost every team in college basketball, Ole Miss has a revamped roster created through the transfer portal. Five players scored more than 1,000 points in their college careers. Led by Jaylen Murray (14.0) and Sean Pedulla (13.3), five players are averaging more than 9.7 points per game.

“They are extremely experienced in all areas,” Young said. “…They obviously went out and got some guys that know how to score. So we’ll have our hands full with a lot of different players and we’ll have to be really good defensively.

“They’re really aggressive and catch a lot of things in and around the paint (on defense),” Young continued. “So I think our spacing will be very important. I think we had a good week of preparation. We’ve been able to dive into these guys quite a bit, so I think we know what to expect.”

Beard mentioned BYU’s “dynamic point guards” — freshman Egor Demin and veteran Dallin Hall — and the Cougars’ ability to play inside the zone and outside the 3-point line as aspects of the team that give it a solid identity .

“It’s going to be a real challenge for our defense to defend at all three levels,” Beard said. “They also do a good job of pushing the tempo and playing in the open floor.”

The 6-foot-3 Hall, a junior, played against MVSU for the first time all season after recovering from a toe injury. He had 10 points, five assists and three rebounds in 21 minutes. Hall replaced Trevin Knell in the starting lineup against the Delta Devils.

“He’s a guy that will also increase our 3-point volume. He’s a good shot. I think he made seven three-pointers in that game, all good shots,” Young said. “So that will increase our 3-point percentage. And then just from an overall leadership standpoint, he’s one of our captains. He is one of our leaders. … He’s really kind of an extension of me out there on the floor, to a greater degree.”

Starting player Keba Keita suffered an undisclosed injury against Idaho and did not play against MVSU. Young said Wednesday that the 6-foot-2 junior transfer from Utah is “progressing well” and will be a mid-game decision.

“We’ll see how he feels after what we did (Wednesday afternoon),” Young said. “But everyone else is fine.”