Even after Tuesday afternoon’s 76-56 walloping of Arizona State in front of an eye-popping 16,926 fans at the Marriott Center on New Year’s Eve, BYU’s basketball team remains sort of a mystery as the calendar turns to 2025.

Thanks to a pillow-soft non-conference schedule that ranked 355th in the country, in terms of strength — a schedule that new coach Kevin Young has acknowledged twice in December that he inherited and will improve in future years — BYU entered Big 12 play Tuesday as a bit of an unknown.

The same can’t be said of Richie Saunders.

BYU’s star junior guard was at his ever-loving best on the final day of 2024, scoring a career-high 30 points on 11 of 18 shooting as the Cougars (10-2, 1-0) ran way from an ASU team (9-3, 0-1) that suffered through its worst offensive performance of the season.

“I have said it from Day 1, he’s a flat-out stud,” said Young, who became the fourth-fastest BYU coach to get to 10 wins. “The thing I love about him is just how hard he plays, No. 1. But No. 2, you don’t have to run stuff for him for him to be able to get shots.

“We do run some things for him from time to time. He is very opportunistic, looking to be aggressive.

I think he takes good shots,” Young continued. “He puts a ton of pressure on the defense. He was a catalyst for us tonight. He really has been all year. I think I have made that known in terms of how important he is for our team.”

Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley was also impressed with BYU’s crowd (students are on holiday break, but you would never know it), BYU’s defense, and BYU’s glue guy, Saunders, who is becoming much more than that in his third year in the program.

The 31st best 3-point shooting team in the country (38.5%) coming in, ASU missed its first 12 triples and finished 6 of 29 (20.7%).

“I credit BYU, their aggression. I thought they were pretty physical. They did a good job mixing their defenses up,” Hurley said. “I do think we left some things on the table, especially early in the game. Against a high-caliber quality opponent like BYU — early in the game you gotta try and get off to a good start, especially on the road. Very good environment, loud.”

The Sun Devils — who own wins over St. Mary’s, New Mexico and Grand Canyon — just didn’t have it in their first-ever Big 12 game. They played fairly well the last half of the first half to cut a 16-point deficit to five at halftime, but otherwise were overmatched.

“We didn’t do a good job in either the (start) of the first or second half. But certainly I felt they were very good on defense,” said Hurley. “They were very aggressive on that end of the floor and they took a lot away from us today.”

And they had no answer for Saunders, who was 6 of 11 from 3-point range, his last bomb giving him 30 in the final minutes. The Riverton product’s former career-high was 26, which also came in a day game, against Idaho.

“You know, first off, sometimes it is like that. That’s what happens with a team. Today might have been my offensive day, but that is just kinda how it is sometimes,” Saunders said. “We really worked hard on getting paint kick-outs, and I was fortunate enough to be on the kick-out (end) of that so much. Going into the game, that is what we really talked about … Just because we knew how heavy of a paint team they are.”

Saunders was cleared Christmas Eve to get back on the court after suffering a concussion, and a fat lip requiring seven stitches, in the 68-49 win over Wyoming on Dec. 14.

The only other Cougar in double figures was freshman Kanon Catchings, who had 11; Keba Keita chipped in 10 rebounds and freshman Egor Demin added seven assists but struggled offensively in his first game since suffering a knee contusion against Providence on Dec. 3.

Demin was 2 of 8 from the field, 0 of 5 from deep, and didn’t score until the second half.

“This is a team. It happened to be me today, and that’s great,” Saunders said. “It could have been anybody.”

More will be revealed about BYU on Saturday when the Cougars travel to No. 14 Houston, one of the most defense-minded squads in the land, much more. But for now, Young’s three-month claim that he has a good team on his hands feels like an accurate assessment.

BYU’s depth through a dozen games has been impressive, and it was on display again Tuesday. Its defense, which was found lacking in that 83-64 blowout loss at Providence the first, and only, time it faced a hostile road crowd, has seemingly improved.

“Happy with our defense today,” Young said. “That is something that we have been harping on since that Providence game. So I thought there was a lot of carryover with the things that we have been asking our guys to do against obviously a high-level opponent. So that was good to see.”

Saunders scored 15 of BYU’s first 18 points, and the Cougars started as if they were going to blow the visitors off the court. Catchings’ baseline dunk gave BYU a 26-10 lead with 6:40 left in the first half.

Then the Cougars went cold, got sloppy with the ball, and were on the unfortunate end of a couple of whistles.

BJ Freeman’s 3-pointer with 6:17 left in the half ended ASU’s frostiness from the 3-point line, and got the Sun Devils rolling. ASU’s 16-5 run to end the half cut BYU’s lead to 31-26 at the break.

The Cougars failed to score in the last 2:10 of the half, after a sizzling start.

The start of the second half was much like the start of the second, as BYU scored the half’s first nine points. This time, ASU couldn’t cut into the double-digit lead.

There was a little drama with just under eight minutes remaining when Amier Ali came up with a steal and a fast break dunk. But he taunted Saunders after the play and received a technical foul. Then Hurley picked up a technical foul for apparently complaining about the one given to Ali.

Asked about it in the postgame news conference, Hurley politely declined to provide an answer.

So BYU heads back out on the road for what will easily be its biggest test of its second season in the Big 12, Young’s first. Houston downed Oklahoma State 60-47 Monday might with suffocating defense.

Young’s next task will be to get Demin going, after consecutive subpar games. With 14 scouts from six different NBA clubs in attendance Tuesday, the 6-foot-9 Russian didn’t look the part of an NBA first-round draft pick.

“He sat on that Providence loss on that (individual) performance as well for a long time while the rest of us have been able to flush that a long time ago,” Young said. “I expected him to be pressing a little bit. I thought his floor game was good up until the end there when they put (Jayden) Quaintance on him, and that kid, my goodness, he is an all-world defender. That kid is impressive.

“He kinda bothered Egor a little bit, but Egor will be good,” Young continued. “I think it was good for him to play against that level of length, and he will get better.”