The easiest part of No. 7 BYU’s November basketball schedule ended Tuesday night with the Cougars slogging their way past winless Delaware 85-68 at the Marriott Center in front of 18,299 fans.

Now it gets really interesting, as the Cougars (3-0) take on UConn, Wisconsin, Miami and either Dayton or Georgetown to finish out the month. The gauntlet begins Saturday when BYU and the No. 3 Huskies meet at TD Garden in Boston, not far from top BYU recruit AJ Dybantsa’s hometown of Brockton, Massachusetts.

The sample size is relatively small, but this much we know about coach Kevin Young’s team in his second season in Provo: It is arguably the most athletic, dynamic and talent-laden squad in school history. Whether or not it lives up to some enormously high, and perhaps unfair, expectations remains to be seen.

BYU looked nothing like a top-10 team in the first half against the Blue Hens, trailing 37-34 at the break after making only one of 12 3-point attempts in the first 30 minutes. Delaware, which lost to a Division II school Friday night at home, made six 3-pointers in the first half, got out to an early 10-0 lead and never trailed until 14:43 remained in the game.

“Good coaching on their part,” Young said. “They had a great game plan. They slowed the game down. They mucked it up.”

And it worked, as BYU as a 35-point favorite struggled on both ends of the floor against 0-3 Delaware.

In the final 20 minutes, the Cougars recovered nicely, however, going 11 for 20 from deep to win, avoiding what could have been a massive upset.

“I thought it was good for us,” Young said. “You just have to find what buttons to push, from a coaching standpoint, from a playing standpoint. Our guys did that.”

The Cougars had shown in exhibition games against Nebraska and North Carolina and their victories over Villanova and Holy Cross that the ability is there, in spades, to make a long postseason run. They were obviously not sharp against Delaware, for whatever reason.

The Blue Hens played even with the Cougars for the first 29 minutes, until Richie Saunders and Rob Wright III heated up, each finishing with 26 points. Wright also had nine rebounds and nine assists, flirting with a triple-double.

“I think my instincts kind of just kicked in. It looked liked we needed a spark, so I just came up big and provided that spark,” Wright said.

In the first half, BYU lacked cohesion, could never find any offensive rhythm against Delaware’s zone defense and struggled to play together. There was miscommunication on defense, and a general lack of urgency. They were fortunate to be playing a shorthanded and undersized Delaware team, but credit the visitors for playing fearlessly and with passion after having lost to D-II Wilmington University on Friday.

The Cougars missed their first 11 3-point attempts, continuing a theme that has developed since the first exhibition against Nebraska.

Saunders was 6 of 8 from deep in the second half to get out of his slump, having fully recovered from an illness that limited his production against Villanova, and eventually recorded the second double-double of his career, adding 10 rebounds.

Dybantsa added 18 points, meaning the Big Three scored 70 of BYU’s 85 points.

“We got a team, a lot of good guys all the way across the board,” Saunders said. “It’s going to be guys stepping up every game. But we’re here to win.”

Early concerns include defensive rebounding, poor 3-point shooting

So there are some early concerns, such as frosty 3-point shooting and some shakiness on the defensive glass, but until the Delaware debacle nothing had happened to indicate that this team wouldn’t be a factor in the NCAA Tournament in March. It’s that good, deep and talented.

Has anything surprised Young through three games?

“I’m still learning this group, to be honest with you. It is still really early in the season, so it’s hard to say. I would not say anything has surprised me. I also don’t feel like I know this group like the back of my hand yet. I think we’re still learning what’s best for this team on both ends of the floor.”

The lack of offensive rebounding has also been a concern, so much so that Young says he stopped practice the other day when Wright corralled an offensive board. Five of Wright’s nine rebounds were on the offensive glass Tuesday night.

“We have some really good players, honestly,” Young said when asked for more input on this team’s identity. “What can we do to continue to get these guys to play with each other and make each other better? I think that’s the biggest challenge.

“I’ve been on a lot of teams that have had high-end talent, and sometimes it goes great and sometimes it doesn’t. I think the teams where it goes great is when they all play for each other,” Young continued. “For me, that’s bigger than the scheme. It’s bigger than the X’s and O’s. If these guys play for the guy next to him, we’re going to be really good, because we have good talent. … Then if our 3s start going in like we know they can, we’re going to be the most dangerous team.”

That’s why this is the most anticipated BYU basketball season ever.

Bigger tests ahead for No. 7 BYU

Albeit an exhibition win, the conquest of North Carolina at Delta Center a few weeks ago is holding up well, as the Tar Heels beat Kansas 87-74 in Chapel Hill last Friday.

More will be known this coming Saturday against UConn in what will amount to a home game for Dan Hurley’s team, national champions in 2023 and 2024. That game will tell the tale in the early going for the Cougars, possibly expose some weaknesses, and go a long way in showing fans what Young has on his hands in Season Two.

It will be BYU’s eighth game pitting top 10 teams in its history.

Of the 82 college basketball games on Saturday, Kenpom.com gives the BYU-UConn matchup the highest “Thrill Score.”

This is BYU’s highest ranking since it climbed to No. 3 in 2011, Jimmer Fredette’s senior season. The Cougars dropped to eighth before the NCAA Tournament began after Brandon Davies was suspended, and finished at No. 10 in the AP Poll after making it to the Sweet 16.

Said Young: “We’re looking forward to going out on the road on kind of a longer trip with our guys. It is a good team-bonding (experience) and so forth. It is cool to have AJ back in his hometown. It will be cool to see how many BYU fans show up at TD Garden. We’re looking forward to it.”

The schedule lightens considerably in December, save a game on the ninth in New York City’s Madison Square Garden against Clemson.

Can BYU push Houston, Arizona for Big 12 supremacy?

The Big 12 will be a landmine almost every night, as Houston is No. 1, Arizona is No. 5, Texas Tech is No. 11, Iowa State is No. 16 and Kansas is No. 25 in the most recent rankings.

Senior guard Dawson Baker said after the Cougars blasted Holy Cross 98-53 that it is going to take some time for this roster to gel and learn to play together.

“Once we mesh those things together, both (defensively) and offensively, when we mesh things like that together, we’re going to be really, really good,” said Baker, who got his first start as a Cougar on Tuesday because normal starter Kennard Davis was nursing a sore Achilles.

Young said that Davis probably could have played Tuesday and should be good to go against UConn.

The win over Delaware pushed BYU’s non-conference home winning streak to 22 games and bumped Young’s record at the Marriott Center to 17-2.

Young said that three players accounting for the bulk of the points is not a concern.

“Those guys are going to score a lot of points every night, to be honest with you,” he said. “We are searching for somebody off the bench to come in and make shots. And I think Dawson will be that guy when he is fully healthy. We’re giving a lot of opportunity to Tyler (Mrus). He has yet to have a game he wants, but I think it’s coming because he’s a winning player. He makes winning plays out there. … But I mean, our team is built around those three guys. I feel great when I wake up and know I’m going to battle with those three guys.”

Backcourt depth could also be a concern

BYU’s backcourt depth took a mild blow when projected backup point guard Nate Pickens, a transfer from UC Riverside, was ruled out for the season after having foot surgery. Wright III has shown some durability and the ability to play a lot of minutes, but the Cougars quite likely will have to play more positionless basketball when he’s off the court and have Saunders and Dybantsa handle the ball like point guards.

Speaking of Dybantsa, he’s been everything he was projected to be. He opened the season with a 21-point outing in BYU’s 71-66 win over Villanova in Las Vegas, then had 17 points, eight rebounds, three assists and a block against Holy Cross.

Heavy favorites against the Crusaders, the Cougars were 16 for 18 on layups, including 10 dunks. When is the last time that happened in Provo? Having missed 15 layups against Villanova, the Cougars were a sizzling 32 for 38 on two-point attempts against Holy Cross.

“I think this notion of paint finishing and paint decisions, to me, is probably the thing that’s going to move the pendulum the most for us this season,” Young said.

Dybantsa got smacked in the face early in the game against Delaware and briefly left, only to return and attack the rim with vengeance. He finished with 18 points and seven rebounds.

“If we can figure out how to be great rim finishers and great paint finishers, we are going to be a really, really good offensive team,” Young said. “If not, we will be OK because we have talent. But really, to me, that’s the thing we’ve got to get right more than anything.”

Young and his staff focused on improving their perimeter defense over the offseason, after Alabama blitzed the Cougars with a record-setting 25 3-pointers on 51 attempts to eliminate BYU in the Big Dance last March.

Through three games, and with a big leap in athleticism, that goal appears to have been accomplished notwithstanding Delaware’s 11 of 24 shooting from beyond the arc Tuesday.

“That is obviously something that was not a strength of ours last year,” Young said after the Holy Cross game. “We definitely wanted to recruit to that a little bit more, and so I think we’re going to be able to get a lot more stops and be able to run off of our defense and have some exciting plays in transition like we saw tonight. I am excited about what we could do with that moving forward.”