Thursday marks 50 days until tipoff

This Thursday marks 50 days until BYU basketball opens the 2012-13 season at home against Tennessee State at 7 p.m. MT in the Marriott Center.

To celebrate, BYU athletics will hide 50 blue and white BYU basketballs throughout Utah, Wasatch and Salt Lake counties for fans to find on Thursday. Clues to the location of the basketballs will be posted on twitter.com/BYUbasketball beginning at 9 a.m. MT on Thursday.

Fans that find a ball will receive four tickets to the home opener if they tweet a photo of the ball in its location to @BYUbasketball using the hashtag #50DaysTilTip.

BYU’s opener against Tennessee State is its first of two homes games as part of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. The Cougars take on Georgia State on Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. MT and then play Florida State on Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. ET at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn N.Y. BYU will play either St. Joseph’s or Notre Dame on Nov. 17 at the Barclays Center.

The Cougars, coached by Dave Rose, return starters Brandon Davies (15.2 ppg, 7.7 rpg), Matt Carlino (12.2 ppg, 4.6 apg) and Brock Zylstra (8.3 ppg, 4.3 rpg) from last season’s 26-9 team that advanced to the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament. Tyler Haws, who started 33 games and averaged 11.3 points and 4.2 rebounds in 2009-10 before serving a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Phillipinnes, also returns.