Of course the week after I highlight how BYU Basketball is in a great position, the BYU Basketball world decides to turn upside down. But I believe we are still in a good spot!
We are all probably familiar with the Pope, in the Catholic Church, Brigham Young, who founded BYU, and Joseph Smith, a prophet, who restored Christ’s church back here on the earth again. But do you know how Mark Pope, Kevin Young, and Ryan Smith all played a huge role in where we are today for BYU Basketball?
The Pope Section
Lets start with Mark Pope. Mark Pope was tabbed as the next Kentucky basketball coach last week. He got around 5.5 million a year to be the next coach, putting him as one of the highest paid coaches in college basketball. That is a ton of money and a most likely upgrade from BYU who doesn’t usually release how much their coaches are paid. He gets a huge pay upgrade, gets to go back to his alma mater, and gets to take on being the coach for one of the greatest programs in college basketball. I dont fault him at all for taking the job. I am actually cheering for him and want him to succeed. He is just a great human being.
But then the repercussions of him leaving started to hit. Aly Khalifa said that he is entering the transfer portal, then Dallin Hall announced that is going into the transfer portal also, and then Richie Saunders announced that he is going into the portal as well. Three big key factors to BYU last year. And to put the cherry on top, Collin Chandler, the highest rated recruit ever to commit to BYU basketball, announced that he is leaving BYU and committing to Kentucky.
It felt like a huge stab in the back. BYU was crumbling and broken and looked like we had a huge restart ahead of us. But then Young and Smith came to save us.
Young and Smith to the Rescue
If you dont know who Ryan Smith is, he is the founder of Qualtrics, current co owner of the Utah Jazz, and a graduate from BYU. He is a big BYU fan, has a lot of money, and is also finalizing a sale withe the NHL of the Arizona Coyotes to Utah. Hes been a busy man lately. Not busy enough to help BYU basketball pull in a BIG coaching change though. BYU hired Kevin Young, an associate head coach from the Phoenix Suns, and one of the highest paid assistant coaches from the NBA, to be the next BYU Basketball head coach. WHAT. Yes, you read that right. He is supposedly getting a 7 year contract for around $4.2 or $4.3 million a year.
How did BYU pull that off? Well it was mostly Ryan Smith. Ryan Smith and the Young family are good friends. Kevin Young’s brother, Daniel Young, is the VP at Qualtrics. They know each other. So Ryan Smith pulled some strings and helped BYU offer a much higher amount of annual salary than what Pope was making. To make this even crazier, Kevin Young interviewed with the Brooklyn Nets and was offered the head coaching position there for around $5 million a year but after talking to his NBA community and his connections, Young was hesitant to take the job.ย That is when BYU came in and offered a slightly lower annual salary and Young took the job. The idea of not traveling as much, having a shorter season, and going back to the place that Young was born, sealed the deal for him.
But now Kevin Young has some work to do. He will finish the season with the Phoenix Suns, as they are in the playoffs that begin on Saturday. In the next couple of days, he will finalize his assistant coaches and staff and put them right to work to help recruit some of these players who are now in the transfer portal.
The 4 guys that Young has to focus on are Jaxson Robinson, Dallin Hall, Aly Khalifa, and Richie Saunders. Young knows the NBA and who can make it there. What a better way for Robinson to gauge and see what he needs to do to make it there. Because of that, Young needs to convince Robinson to stay. Hall has heard from a ton of schools. Almost 13 now. He is getting a lot of attention. Young needs to pull Hall in and make sure that he has a great plan for him. Khalifa listed his top 3 schools that he is considering as Kentucky, Louisville, and a return to BYU. So he isnt ruling out BYU, but again, Young needs to show that Khalifa is focal point of the new offense that he is going to run. And Saunders only announced that he is going into the transfer portal due to the coaching uncertainty at BYU. So I would expect him to come back pretty soon.
Who Could Fill the Assistant Coaches Role?
There are some really quality guys who could become assistants for Kevin Young. The names that are being thrown around are:
- Chris Burgess (Current Utah Assistant coach and previous BYU assistant coach)
- Barret Peery (UNLV assistant coach)
- Alex Jensen (Dallas Mavericks assistant coach)
- Brandon Dunson (former Stanford assistant coach)
- Paul Peterson (Head coach at Wasatch Academy)
There was also a report that Kevin Young is looking to the NBA to also bring an NBA assistant coach with him to BYU. That to me makes me think that he is trying to get Alex Jensen to come with him. It could be someone else, but he would be the most likely pick to me. Paul Peterson has a ton of ties in Utah due to being at Wasatch Academy is a great recruiter. Brandon Dunson isnt LDS and is a minority which I think would be a great pickup for those guys that BYU wants to bring. He also has great connections through the west coast as that is where he has mostly coached. Both Peery and Burgess had a ton of interest in the head coaching position. So I would guess that BYU would try to bring them in as higher up assistants with one of them being the associate head coach.
Summary of BYU Basketball
BYU basketball has been a roller coaster lately! But BYU seems to be in a great position with Kevin Young. Whenever you can pull someone from the NBA, who also happens to be the highest paid assistant coach in the NBA, to be your college coach, that is huge. If you want to hear Kevin Young’s introductory press conference at BYU, that is tonight at 7pm on ESPN+, byucougars.com, and BYUtv. I am also excited to see what Kevin Young brings to the team. He could also bring in his own collection of transfers and recruits, maybe next year on the recruit side, since we are pretty late into this already. But I pumped for him! He is a great hire!
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