Young has some schoolies to fill, who will it be

Basketball
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KY is putting a final four team together before our eyes. It may not happen this year, but these kids are so young. They would be solid for the following year to be a final four team.

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I already started a thread. You are a real jerk.

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This put BYU at #12 in recruiting and third behind Arizona and Baylor in the BIG12!

Nicely done Coach Young!

I do have a question for anyone who has inside information:

Kalani talked about his recruiting process and said Tom Holmoe has made it clear that NILā€™s are important, but he wanted to focus on the experience of being part of BYU .

Do we know if this is true for both football and basketball, or is Ryan Smith getting people to donate for the NILā€™s?

I will say that there was an article about a BYUā€™s Kody Epps that got an unusual NIl where it helped him setup up his company.

BYU football: Kody Epps putting BYUā€™s NIL opportunities to work ā€“ Deseret News

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I donā€™t have any insider information because Iā€™m not an insider but I believe that the NIL thing isnā€™t the main driving force behind BYU getting these kinds of basketball recruits. I think it is a combination of relationships and Coach Youngā€™s pedigree/vision for BYU basketball.

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Coach Fanning said today that players like Channing respond positively with the honor code because they can focus on their craft instead of frat parties.

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Per Jerom Jorden:
Kanon Catchingsā€™ .9849 247 Sports recruiting rating makes him the highest signee in program history (since the metric was used).

BYU currently has its #1, #5 & #8 highest 247 Sports recruiting rated players of all-time.

And that doesnā€™t include Egor Demin who if he was stateside would likely be #1 or #2.

Puts BYU in the top 5 nationally.

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Iā€™ve been paying attention to BB recruiting but donā€™t post much during the off season. Everyone knows I was a big Pope fan, but KY is playing a whole new ballgame. A couple thoughts:

  1. Travis Hansen was a big influence on Demin. If Demin has a good experience at BYU, we could see other top euros in coming years.
  2. Iā€™m of course thrilled with the Demin signing, but I expected it. But Iā€™m in shock about the Catchings signing. Makes me start thinking wild thoughts about the next 4-5 years with KY at the helm.
  3. Lest we forget in all the excitement about signing Keiba, Mag, Demin, Crawford, and Catchingsā€“Baker, Saunders, Fouss, and Hall are all potential B12 players.
  4. Fouss RECRUITED Keiba to BYU. He recruited a guy to COMPETE WITH HIM FOR MINUTES. This is an incredibly selfless, TEAM oriented move. Of course they are close friends, but still. I think the two combined are a MAJOR upgrade over Fouss/Khalifa last year. Not even close. We need to remember that Khalifa couldnā€™t guard ANYONE. He blocked a few shots but he just couldnā€™t guard.
  5. I have zero concerns about KYā€™s ability to create the right on court chemistry, etc. He has been dealing with MUCH bigger egos for the last 8 years in the NBA, with great success.
    LETā€™S GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

PS Now we just need to suffer through football season and then the fun starts.

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88

You forgot Kowslowsky. Heā€™s going to fight for starting position too. Also, Stewart is off his mission. This team is loaded.

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LOVE the post.

Purdue coach: I canā€™t guarantee spots. Not too happy to lose Catchings.

My thoughts:

I will make this prediction:
If McCae Hillstead can get his break, BYU will go bowling. I donā€™t have that much confidence in the other two.

Our BBall team is so young in the NBA talent to be talking about big runs in the NCAAs but if these two (Demin and Catchings) stay for two seasons, BYU could be a final 4 type team.

On the Pope side of things, Pope has never won a NCAA game and they gave him a kingā€™s ransom. I would bet on KY to get further in the dance over Pope, time will tell

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I donā€™t know enough about KY as a head coach to say, nor do I think anyone does at this point.
KY for whatever reason has been able to recruit better than Pope did.
Pope was a wizard at the Xs and Os aside from in game adjustments. He knew how to do the analytics and design the O for his players, with Fennel doing the same for the defense I thought they had a great future at BYU.
At BBN, Pope and his love of his school, well with the blue blood history of the school and its money for its program too, Pope I think will overcome the deficiencies of his recruiting for our version of blue.

To the extent better talent makes for better results, I am very excited for the future.
One of the things that keeps crossing my mind is that the money spending barrier has been breached. BYU has scrupulously followed the NCAA recruiting rules for decades and still put a competitive athletic program together. Without the tethers of the old rules, BYU finally gets to start playing like one of the big boysā€¦I hope Demin and Kozlowski with Catchings all have phenominal freshman years and pave the way for even more to come.

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Not a single penny of that money is coming from the church

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BYU Basketball Mailbag: Final Scholarship, Rotations, Expectations - Vanquish The Foe

BYU looks to repeat what Young did in the transfer portal into a killer 2026 recruiting year