Tough break for us. Really calls into question how BYU can succeed. Lots of schools lose guys like this to the draft. But if you’re Kentucky, You have 4 more to replace them. Bey needs guys who can play 4 years.
On the other hand it’s good for the program if he gets drafted. Not so much if he doesn’t…
Was he any better than Jimmer or Mika? He will end up in other country. Plus he has said his knee still bothering him and who is going to take him in NBA?
And BYU is not getting any better soon. And who’s next to move on to worry about?
He has a low shot but yes, he has more potential than Jimmer. He’s quicker, better on defense, has more spring in his jumping. And, he’s a really good shooter and scorer. His size and strength gives him the edge over Jimmer. Mika needed another year or two in college and he would have been a first rounder.
It makes it harder too when degrees are set up to only take 3 years and not 4. Or, they redshirt and can leave for their last year. It’s too bad. Ainge could have left early but was true to his school. We don’t have a lot of commitment anymore.
Right now I would give Eli a 5% chance of getting an NBA roster spot and Yoeli .001%. But I am not surprised Eli is going pro. I think our team will once again be not very good next year, so why stick around? Mika, Davies, Carlino will be millionaires playing 40 game seasons in Europe, so Eli may as well. My daughter is a good friend of his (he even did the photography for my daughter’s wedding) and she has never said anything but how great a kid he is. More power to him for upping his game to where he can go get paid. I don’t put any stock in the “stick around to be loyal” line when you play 1/2 your games in high school gyms. I mean, seriously, who really cares about the WCC? Once Gonzaga leaves the league will fade away to live stream only and good riddance. Eli’s not going to finish at the rim or shoot 3s any better than he did this year, and that’s all they care about in the pros anyway, so ELI GO GET THE MONEY–YOU DESERVE IT!
Nice post-ooo so accurate
To any player that can go pro, I say, do it. You should be loyal to one person and that is yourself. You put the work in and have a set of talents that you can get paid for. You should cash in. Eli got his degree, and although I would have loved to see him in the blue and white one more year, Eli like any other student, put his skills to work and make a living.
Yo’s people blew us off, so we did not get in a workout…nothing to report there.
One telling thing I will say in talking to Yo and Eil…Rose has not talked much to them, I mean, If I was their coach, I would be talking about sticking around, this being our year, beating Gonzaga and finally winning the WCC crown, going to the big dance…but nothing, just crickets. Coach Hecker says to me, “Rose is tired, no fight, no vision”. Time to retire.
Bryant will make a lot of money in Europe but I don’t believe he is a NBA prospect. I don’t agree with Scott Gavenmen that he is quicker than Jimmer. Jimmer was not slow. He is just white so it is easy to stereotype him as the slow white guy. He is not real quick but neither is he slow. I think he is quick enough for the NBA. He just doesn’t fit into the NBA culture. Bryant isn’t all that quick but he is taller than Jimmer and has learned how to play decent defense. He doesn’t have Jimmer’s shot or range.
None of the BYU players who have left early in recent years were NBA material when they left and that includes Plaisted, Mika & Bryant. Childs, at this point, is not even as good a prospect as the others were.but he could still make a lot of money in Europe. Even Tavernari has made good money in Europe.
With Europe and Asia paying big bucks to basketball players you can expect a steady early exodus of college talent before guys use up their eligibility. There is no risk anymore in declaring for the draft and hiring an agent because if you can’t cut it in the NBA the agent will get you a nice contract in Europe or China.
Even Duke, who used to sign kids that were real students and would stick around 4 years is recruiting like Kentucky does understanding that even the 2nd tier talent might not stick around but go to Europe. You might as well sign the one and done freshman NBA farm players and go as far as you can with them because the type of good players who are not quite NBA material, who used to stay four years, now have a high paying alternative to the NBA if they can’t make it there.
I get the feeling guys are seeing other leagues as viable and respectable. Be a star in Germany or Spain and get paid while living in Europe or Asia. Millionaire before 40 makes a world of difference. That’s very doable.
I predict in the next few years a lot of high school kids will bail to Europe for better training, money, and a better life than the dorms. Then if they want, they pick up a degree later with their cash. Especially the top end talent. Why struggle with classes you don’t care about when you want to focus on basketball…without getting paid? Go overseas, make money, test the draft.
Agreed
If true, then I agree. Sometimes, you just get tired.
So what’s the optimal strategy for BYU going forward? We don’t get those guys very often but we run our system through them and then they leave.
You should do as I posted and watch the interview with Bryant today. Had BYU recruited Bryant out of high school, he would have played all 4 years. This past season would have been his 4th and last season. There would have been no redshirt year.
With respect to Jimmer, Bryant’s ability to use his body driving into the lane was far superior to Jimmer. Jimmer could not defend nearly as well as Bryant. Not even close. Jimmer has an incredible outside shot. But, Bryant does too that will get better. Bryant has more to offer an NBA team at 6’-6” tall versus Jimmer at 6-1 slow and nit even close vertical leap ability. Bryant has a shot and says his two teams he’s hopeful for are the Jazz and the Lakers. Go Lakers!
I have no idea what their strategy should be because BYU won’t get the one and done types ever. BYU never has to this point. Occasionally there is an LDS kid who is a one and done type and then they go to Duke so top 100 guys who are not one and done types are about the best BYU gets and now we see a trend with them going pro in Europe after 2-3 years because the money is good and they can make the money doing what they love to do. It would be a hard sell to keep a lot of these kids around unless they thought they could do something special like make a final four.
A school can do very well with a bunch of top 100 guys who aren’t quite NBA material if you handle them correctly. Loyola made a final four and I wonder if they had any top 100 players. I doubt the guys they had were any more highly regarded out of high school as a lot of BYU players. Butler made a final four the year after Heyward left without any one and done types. BYU has certainly had talent on a level of a number of mid major final four teams over the past decade. They can certainly attract players on a par with Butler, Loyola, Virginia Commonwealth,George Mason, and maybe even Gonzaga. You can make a final four with the kind of talent BYU gets but BYU has to do something different to keep their guys happy and performing up to expectations. Maybe Rose is burned out. He used to do a pretty good job coaching his talent up in the Mountain West Conference days. I don’t think the talent is any less now than it was then but the results are certainly not as good. I don’t think ESPN had a top 100 list when Jimmer was recruited but I wonder if he would have made it if they had. The only other offer he got from a D1 program was Siena.
Let us assume Emery comes back and Childs stays. That would give them 4 top 100 high school recruits; Emery, Haws, Childs, and Dastrup. That should be a good enough core to easily make the NCAA IF THEY PERFORM LIKE TOP 100 RECRUITS. The issue hasn’t been getting talent it has been keeping it and developing it. At least that is how I am seeing it now.
Well, people have been dumping on Rose but Bryant said the opposite about the coaching staff. He loves his coaches.
I don’t doubt that most of the players do love Rose but being liked doesn’t always mean you get the best out of your players. I am not saying you have to be a Bobby Knight but some coaches have been very successful who weren’t necessarily beloved by their players. I think Rose has been a very good coach but the past few years the talent doesn’t seem to be playing up to expectations in my opinion. That could be a coaching problem and it may be correctable unless Rose is just flat out burned out.
I have been around long enough to remember when fans were saying the same things about Stan Watts and then he got Cosic and he was a great coach again.
Preach.
A very average coach can get 22 wins a season with these recruits…A very average coach.
Want to know who a great coach is? One who wins games that he is the underdog in. You can count on one hand the games Rose has won when he was not the favored…Gonzaga @ Gonzaga when they were ranked #1. Can’t think of many more.
Rose does not coach up his bench. He is never ready for post season and now he has lost possibly his best player, and maybe 2. The Marriott is the second largest college court in the nation, with BYU TV and ESPN and we can’t get past a NIT invite with 4 top 100 recruits? Come On, Man.
Again, that’s not what the playershave said and are saying. It’s certainly not what Bryant just said. Watch the interview.
The one thing I wonder about is the “is this best for me” reason. There are others on the team that would benefit from Bryant staying at BYU. Childs for one. With Bryant on the floor, there isn’t the intense double teaming for Childs or Haws outside shooting that suffered because teams pressured Haws. With Bryant out there, it makes others look better. Bryant will still get his points, improve against tough and bigger defenders in the league that shut him down. This would only help him become a higher pick in the draft. And, he would fit nicely with the Lakers with what they have.
The key with Bryant I think was the fact he is graduating and isn’t looking for a master’s degree. He has a family and is ready to earn an income for his family. He will be a great Elders Quorum President somewhere. I just wish these players thought more about their teammates than how their teammates think about him.
Childs leaving would be a completely different thing. It would be most selfishness. Another year and I’d be willing to see him go pro. He’s got real potential. What a find for Rose!
Just to clarity things I didn’t say Rose was a great coach. I think he was a very good coach in the pre-WCC years. In recent years just average. I think he could turn it around. Unless the talent he has recruited was just overrated for some reason it seems the talent is under performing and that should be correctable. Whether he will get his mojo back or not is the question.
Of course, maybe the talent is performing at its potential or even over performing. Maybe Rose isn’t getting the recognition he deserves because of the blue goggles you all are wearing and can’t see we don’t get the cream of the crop usually. I think Childs is performing above what was expected. No one else wanted. And, Bryant went to Elon. Mika did better than what I thought would happen after a 2 year mission. Maybe give him some credit too.
Either way, we lost him. We aren’t getting top talent. The only way we’ll succeed is with a steady roster to run a smarter system…or suddenly start pulling in 5 stars. So what will it take to stabilize the roster?
As to the video…what’s he going to say? He’d be stupid to alienate people. All I’m looking at here is the bottom line. Get to the NCAA tourney. From my perspective we need to run something like St. Mary’s but with better athletes and we need roster stability to do it. We almost missed the NIT this year. I think Rose does a pretty good job recruiting and he seems like a good guy. But as far as I can tell, we’re looking at second place next year, which may not be good enough. I’m looking for any reason to be optimistic here and I just don’t see it if we keep losing guys.
Let’s be real here. Next year was supposed to be THE YEAR. Finally. And now, maybe the year after that? What’s the goal here?
I would agree. I also am at a loss. We don’t get 5 stars so we can’t overwhelm people with talent and athleticism. We have to play smart but that takes time to gel and train. I’m thinking about teams like wichita state and VCU from a few years ago. I don’t know. If we keep losing our best players that is not a recipe for BYU to make it to the NCAA…we are not kentucky.
We are definately unique with the mission musical chairs. We do get top 100 players. But, they go on missions and when they come back they don’t always do well like Mika did.
What is interesting is had anyone ever heard of Bryant or Childs before coming to BYU? Yet, 2 potential NBA players. There have been others. Throw them in leaving early with the missionary thing and Rose is doing a very great job!
