PROVO — Kevin Young's first season of Big 12 basketball, and Amber Whiting's second, is taking shape.

The Big 12 revealed its scheduling matrix for the 2024-25 men's and women's basketball season Thursday, highlighting each team's home-and-away matchups and revealing the teams that will make one-way-only trips in what is now the 16-team conference play.

Here's are the highlights of the newly expanded 20-game conference schedule.

BYU men's basketball

• Home and away: Arizona, Arizona State, Cincinnati, Utah, West Virginia
• Home only: Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech
• Away only: UCF, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, TCU

What stands out

While well-balanced across geography and traditional rivalries with trips to all three eastern time zone schools, the Cougars received a more favorable draw in their home/road splits than not.

Projected top-tier teams Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State and Texas Tech will only play BYU in the Marriott Center, which should be a more favorable outlook than going to Lawrence, Kansas, or Waco, Texas.

Expect Bill Self's team — or what is left of it it, including the return of All-American center Hunter Dickinson — to want to return the favor after BYU's upset win last year at Allen Fieldhouse, though.

The road-only splits are highlighted by a regional foe in Colorado, a cross-country flight to UCF for the second-straight season (BYU played the Knights home-and-away last year), and trips to Houston, Iowa State and TCU.

The red Cougars are once again projected to be among the top teams in the conference. But other than the mayhem that is Hilton Coliseum, those road venues may be as manageable as they come in the toughest college basketball conference in the country.

Other than a back-and-forth cross-country charter with West Virginia, BYU's home-and-away mix is mostly regional, with the other Pac-12 newcomers of Arizona, Arizona State and Utah on the schedule. Cincinnati, which also has a home-and-away set with its nearest Big 12 rival West Virginia, will also play the Cougars twice.

BYU women's basketball

On the women's basketball side, Big 12 coaches and administrators opted for an 18-game conference scheduling, dropping home-and-away pairings to just three per school.

The Cougars are paired in an I-15 Corridor round-robin with rival Utah, as well as Arizona and Arizona State, with six road games and six home games before the conference tournament in Kansas City.

"We are really looking forward to our second season in the Big 12 Conference," BYU third-year head coach Amber Whiting said. "With the women we have returning, the additions from the portal and our talented group of freshmen, we have a really solid group that is eager to prove that we belong in the best basketball conference in the country."

• Home and away: Arizona, Arizona State, Utah
• Home only: UCF, Colorado, Houston, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State
• Away only: Baylor, Cincinnati, Iowa State, TCU, Texas Tech, West Virginia

What stands out

The highly regionalized home-and-away splits are most apparent among the Utah-Arizona schools; Cincinnati and West Virginia will both play each other twice, but also get Houston and Iowa State among their quartet, for example.

The Cougars won't make the longest trip in the Big 12 this year, hosting UCF along with Colorado, Houston, Oklahoma State and the Sunflower State schools.

That leaves arguably their toughest opponents on the road, including a Baylor team that returns All-Big 12 first-teamer and double-digit scorer Sarah Andrews and an Iowa State squad that may be the top returning team in the league led by Audi Crooks and Addy Brown. TCU, which beat BYU twice by double digits last year, also reloaded with a top-shelf transfer class led by former LSU star and Olympic 3x3 standout Hailey Van Lith to pair with Madison Conner and Sedona Prince.

Big 12 scheduling matrix

Here's a look at Utah basketball's 1st season in the Big 12

The Utes got a taste of that new reality Thursday, when the conference released its 2024-25 scheduling matrix.

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