In a way, this thread could be under the “Transfers” thread. Just looking at the obvious here.
Bama knocked BYU out of the sweet 16 with a Historic -never heard of 26 threes, 78 points that would kill any team. Then they laid an egg vs. Duke but that is beside the point and if anyone saw that Bama-Duke game, please chime in…did they get overwhelmed or did they just whiff on their 3s?
Saw this today: BYU basketball: Kevin Young carefully working transfer portal – Deseret News
Young has proven he can put a tough, hardworking team on the floor and he did create an elite scoring team. The next step is to keep that momentum offensively, but also lift BYU up to being a far better defensive team. The Cougars struggled to shut down 3-point shooters and the dam broke in Alabama’s record 25 3-point performance against the Cougars. Mike DeCoursy of Sporting News said before that game he ranked BYU 10th of the 16, but if BYU had won the championship it would have been with the worst defense in a quarter century.
■■■■ Harmon
I believe KY is looking get just as much out of the offense but wants to upgrade the D into a top 10 defense, Like Houston or Duke or any of the final 4 teams.
Bama was sizzling along until it ran into Duke’s #4 ranked D
Tenn, the same, til Houston’s #1 D slammed the lid shut by a 19 point blow out.
So, KY knows he has to get Quick, hard nosed defenders that can defend 3s. as well as upgrade inside.
Last year’s team:
Inside-Keba, elite defender, Foos unstoppable inside but also a poor defender, just too show laterally. Bosko, poor defender, so down low, need a good scorer who defends. Can Xavion Staton fill in? I think we need one more veteran big man.
Need some more Mag-Saunders type guys. Guys that will lock you down.
The Baker,Hall,Knell,Catcings guys have to upgrade to Defenders, Capish?
I think Khadim Mboup has the frame(6’9)and speed to be really good
and Dominique Diomande, uber athletic and averaged 15 ppg. top 50 list for the NBA Bing Videos
As far as your 3 point question, we put Mags and Stewart on their Alabama’s shooters and they still made their shots. Remember Bob Bemon’s great jump? All the synopsis went off perfectly for a 29.2 foot jump. That’s what happened with all of Alabama’s shooters. What did Duke do differently? Duke pressured them out further. Didn’t go under screens. So, the team defense we had didn’t pressure them enough.
Baker can become a point guard if he improves on keeping his head up. He drops his head when dribbling into the lane. Hopefully Demin comes back.
Staton just needs to get stronger and bigger. He’s got the defense ability and working on scoring. Keba should work on his offense. He’s got the defense down already.
Basketball-it’s not that tough to figure out. Team defense. Final 4-all good defensive teams. St John’s all of a sudden emergence on the national team-Pitino specialty-defense. How can you score 88 points and get beat by plus 20-slow reaction on defense. Young knows without a doubt! Hall should stay-not going anywhere after next year and he could still be an asset to BYU’s program. Crawford should come back-very good skills and effort was good! Catchings smsh didn’t seem real motivated. I hate that in talented athletes. They haven’t got the drive-maybe he didn’t adapt well to Provo like Demin did. I wish Catchings all the good luck though-great potential. Demin-hey good NIL-better than playing in the G league. Saunders the hardest-age being the big factor. If Catchings had Saunders drive-he would have been the highest option on the team for the NBA.Love Saunders-great grandfather was Nephi Grigg, who was in my ward! Started up Ore-ida and as a 14 year old worked for him for 4 years. Go Richie-my favorite player!
I don’t know what Catching thinks will happen differently at Purdue. They want a lot more defense efforts too. He will play more at BYU than Purdue.
You are right about Demin. I think he ends up in the G league too. Stay more and make more at BYU. I also think Staton would get a lot of lob dunks along with Keba.
I hear there are rumors about another potential great guard with experience coming to Provo. See if that materializes, right Fish?
Per Evan Miya’s analysis the better teams have a solid mix of talent and returning experience.
He doesn’t mention it, but it also seems clear to me that new players who have solid experience are good for high level results just not so good as having that same talent as experienced with your set of coaching and team already.
He sets the cutoff for 50% of minutes being played by returning players.
For KY that means:
Keba Keita - Senior 50%
Mihailo Boskovic - Senior 22.5%
Dawson Baker - Senior 41%
Brody Kozlowski - Sophomore 2%
Egor Demin 62%
Dallin Hall 54%
Richie Saunders 70%
Khadim Mboup seems to fit the bill as having potential NBA first round talent and at least two more years to play, obviously if he blooms ala Tator Tot Richie then he could move on sooner.
Dominique Diomande also seems to fit the bill for potential NBA first round talent and at least two more years to play as well.
But neither of them can help fit the 50% of returning talent on the floor this year.
It seems rather obvious why Hall put himself in the transfer portal. Unlike Knell or Stewart he has the possibility of making an NBA club in the future so more playing time would be optimal if he can get it on a team that is playing decent competition. Personally, I think without his injury and the transition to KY’s system combining with a supremely talented PG getting the early season time in KY’s system ahead of him that the idea KY stated last summer of having the two of them playing most of the time together might still be a possibility. But Hall is obviously closer to the situation and KY than I am.
Saunders and Demin each could push the returning minutes to closer to the 50% mark and if both returned KY would have a legit top team in conference and the nation to play with.
Given the possibilities of injury at PG and the bigs, KY needs a deeper PG bench than the Demin, Hall, part-time Baker, I was hoping that Crawford could step up his minutes he too has NBA draft potential from all his HS reviews, and from what I saw of him on the court this year too. He has talent and ambition and would be great to keep him for long term.
I think this is the biggest need whether Demin comes back or not. Though if Demin comes back this will be a harder sell, likely need an international player or a player stepping up from a lower conference who is willing to put in a bench year with the expectation of starting in 26-27.
For the bigs: Keita and who?
Staton seems to have improved rapidly this year and he has the advantage of having spent some time actually playing with AJ: not the same as having spent time with AJ in KY’s system but closer than any other player on the team has.
Bosko seems like with more time he could be a nice fit for giving AJ some rest time and on the other wing at the same time if KY needs to go big. He does need to improve some. But given he essentially had no team time last summer, he could make some amazing improvements.
Mboup is too short and thin, has he picked up some muscle this year?) to be a solid big to give Keita.a rest.
So definitely need to get a strong defensive big who has the ability to score some while giving Keita some in game rest and for when Keita goes into one of his fouling binges.
Coach Sampson mentioned that he felt like the loss to Duke last year in the dance, and two of their four losses this year were because of inadequate foul shooting. So he put all of his players on 150 foul shots a day…which made the difference with several of their games this year…not sure why he or any other coach doesn’t have his players doing that as a matter of course anyway.
KY certainly seems to have turned some key at the end of the season to improved foul shooting.
Though Keita was still barely average.
Please tell us, in detail, what makes you think Hall has the possibility of making a NBA club in the future. I have seen nothing that leads me to believe he is even close to it. Can you compare him to a current player in some way? That might help.
I don’t believe there is ANYTHING about his game that translates to NBA club potential.
Hall shoots the 3 ok and he can jump. Remember that two handed dunk off a lob against Iowa St? Not saying he is an NBA prospect but he is strong, jumps well, decent 3 point shooter. The one big weakness he had was FT shooting. A point guard should be an 80% FT shooter.
Here are the statistics on those who played the most. Eye opening! Everyone of them needs to return who can. They have several things to work on. Saunders the most improved but as I thought, NBA wants passers as well. Assists to the stars in the NBA. Hall will improve those numbers if he goes to a less competitive league or stays another year and works harder. He’s just not very quick in the Big12. Look at Demin’s numbers. Maybe 2 more years?
He is not quick for the Big 12, but he is not slow like Knell and he has proven to be a more than passable point guard in the league as a starter based on last year. There is no question that he is an above average rotation player. Once he settled in this season he and Fouss were the top 2 guys off the bench. He is good enough to a top 7 or 8
player on any team in the country. I wish he was coming back He would continue to be a top 7’or 8 guy and get 20 minutes a game and be very valuable. Sure he can be replaced with a quality transfer but I would rather have a quality player with 3 good years of experience than a portal guy of equal quality.
Somebody said he wasn’t good enough to be starter on a top 10 team and that might be true but he is plenty good enough to be in a
7 or 8 man rotation on about any team. I am of the opinion that you need a team with a bunch of guys like Hall to go with a couple of stars who will be around 1 or 2 years. You need the majority of your players to be 3 to 4 year guys who will develop with the program and lend depth and stability.
I agree about having seasoned players to win the whole thing. Houston showed that beating Duke with Duke’s three freshman. But it takes more than that. The offense we played last year helped Hall. The direction we went this year and next doesn’t. Here is the stats for the main players this year.
Demin needs to come back and improve. Hall at 67% FT is bad for a point guard. I’d work with Baker to get him to dribble with his head is up and he could play the point as the #6 player next year. I think we see an offense like the Lakers where 1-3 play the point at times.
When I said teams need a bunch of guys like Hall I didn’t mean a bunch of similarly sized point guards. I meant players of comparable experience and value. Just wanted to clarify. I think Baker, Fouss, Hall, and Knell were all comparable players in terms of value and experience, all with different skill sets. You need a bunch of guys like that and 2-3 stars who are NBA prospects. If BYU can keep Saunders and Demin they will have 3 stars next year and will need to surround them with quality depth players. Baker would be one quality depth or role player player. I think Boscovic will be another one. The freshman Staton and the transfer Diamonte could also be quality depth players. They will need a quality backup
point guard.
Based on what is coming back, assuming Saunders and Demin come back. Four starting spots would be locked down with Keita, Dybantsa, Demin, and Saunders.
A possible fifth starter could be Diamonte or Baker. That would mean 3 quality depth players with Boscovic, Baker or Diamonte, and probably Staton. Kozlowski probably has the skills to be a good depth player, and if everything plays out according to my thoughts then the only real need would a good backup point guard.
It’s going to be hard to keep Diamonte out of the starting lineup. Another one that if he works hard on his midrange and 3 ball shots, could end up starting as well and that’s Khadim Mboup. This kid can put it on the floor and get into the lane. He has some hops as well. He’s either a 3 or a 4. So, I’m looking at this team with Demin, Saunders, AJ, Keba, Diamonte or Mboup all at least 6’6" tall and can handle the ball. Then, you have others that will come back. Baker, Staton and others coming off the bench with experience and could be exciting again! I assume Keba will develop some kind of midrange shot and improve on his free throw. I expect Staton to get a lot of playing time. He works hard. Boskovic and Koslowki. We do need anther pure point guard although I still think Baker could do this if he works hard at keeping his head up better while dribbling.
