BYU's forgiving early schedule has the Cougars looking like a candidate to be the last undefeated team

Picking the last undefeated team in college basketball is an annual tradition on the Eye On College Basketball Podcast, where Matt Norlander and Gary Parrish make their selections each preseason. This year Parrish went with Florida, Norlander chose Virginia, and producer Josh Mullenix picked BYU. A couple of weeks into the season, that third choice is starting to look like it could be the right one.

BYU moved to 4-0 late Thursday with an 86-71 win over Montana State, a game that presented no real problems for the Cougars. Their next assignment comes Wednesday against Northern Colorado, and the road ahead looks manageable for quite some time after that.

A glance at the schedule shows BYU will not see another currently ranked team until at least the championship game of the Maui Invitational, and even that would only happen if Arizona advances to the title game. Beyond that possible matchup, there is no other game against a currently ranked opponent anywhere on the non-league portion of the schedule.

Based on the current computer numbers, unless the Cougars run into Arizona in the Maui Invitational final, they will not be underdogs in any game until they host Kansas on January 9. That is a remarkably long runway of winnable contests.

None of that guarantees BYU will open the season 16-0, of course. College basketball rarely cooperates with projections, and upsets happen to teams with favorable schedules all the time. But the numbers do suggest the Cougars could realistically be favored in each of their first 16 games, which is exactly the kind of path that produces the sport's last unbeaten team.

For now, BYU sits at No. 22 in Friday morning's updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. Holding the top spot once again is Florida, the preseason No. 1, which has now led the rankings for the 13th consecutive day this season.

The Gators return to action Friday night, hosting Merrimack at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center. After that, Florida heads to Las Vegas for the Players Era event, where it opens against Notre Dame.

Whether BYU can turn its soft early schedule into a deep undefeated run remains to be seen. But with no ranked opponent on the immediate horizon and a favorable path through December, the Cougars have as good a chance as anyone to make Mullenix's preseason pick look prophetic.