alt=Dick HarmonSo, BYU chased, caught and corralled the NBA’s highest-paid assistant coach from the Phoenix Suns?
A guy who’ll have one foot in with the Suns through the NBA Playoffs and the other in BYU’s recruiting efforts?
Kevin Young will do Mr. Twister.
It will be remarkable to watch because right now recruiting is at critical mass in Provo.
Young needs experienced college recruiters to hit the pavement immediately to work the transfer portal, meet with current players who are in the transfer portal and stabilize the existing roster.
So, who’s on task right now?
The situation needs a call out.
Young does have a few days until his job with the Suns takes him to Saturday’s game for Phoenix. Certainly he is full on BYU recruiting and hiring assistants.
The current top BYU basketball assistant coach, Cody Fueger, hasn’t made himself available the past three days. It could be assumed new Kentucky coach Mark Pope will take Fueger with him to Lexington.
If not, somebody should say.
Assistant Nick Robinson is hopefully working the phones, unless he’s leaving with Pope.
But seriously, this is a thing.
Young’s obvious strength he brings to BYU is his respected reputation as a developer of talent — getting athletes to perform at their highest level. It will surely be used in days to come as BYU peddles his hire.
What Young does need is experienced, connected, veteran college recruiters who know the circuit, have been in the weeds searching for talent and are aware of who is in the transfer portal. They need to know those potential recruits because they’ve seen them in high school, AAU tournaments and other schools for years.
This would be foreign to Young at this stage. His haunts have been in the NBA — not the Big 12, Pac 12, SEC, Mountain West or other college conferences.
University of Utah assistant Chris Burgess had his name thrown around extensively as a replacement for Pope when news broke this past week.
Burgess is an outstanding recruiter. He has the contacts and experience to fit the need.
I engaged in serious debate with several media members on Tuesday over the topic: Would Burgess really make a parallel move as a Ute assistant to BYU assistant under Young? The discussion was extremely interesting and ranged from “no way” to “maybe” then to “of course ... if the price and title were right.”
Well, if BYU made an unprecedented financial move to hire Young, he’s probably been promised the coin to hire the staff he wants in place.
Robby McCombs, a BYU basketball insider who writes for Vanquish the Foe, reported Tuesday that former Stanford assistant Brandon Dunson has emerged as a target for Young.
“Dunson has spent the last two seasons as a Stanford assistant, but was not retained by new head coach Kyle Smith,” reported McCombs. “Prior to Stanford, Dunson served as an assistant coach at Denver, (where he was associate head coach), Cal State Fullerton, and Nevada. Prior to that he was at Stanford in a support staff role from 2016-2018 and coached at the NAIA level. Dunson played collegiately at SIU-Edwardsville, Wabash Valley College, Arizona State and Azusa Pacific.”
Young is allowed to hire five assistant coaches.
He ought to take a look at the reported Pope replacement candidate Barret Peery, currently an assistant at UNLV. Peery is a smart, experienced coach, the kind of bench and practice personality Young could use. A native of Payson, he might be looking for a way to return close to his Utah County home where he was a star high school player.
Nine-time Utah high school championship coach and former Dave Rose assistant Quincy Lewis should be given a hard look. He is a proven high school guru and can recruit. His resume is before Young and his son Cooper, 2024′s Deseret News Mr. Basketball selection, is visiting St. Mary’s of the WCC this week where he has received an offer from Randy Bennett.
Meanwhile, it appears BYU big man Fouss Traore is doing some recruiting of his own. On Monday, Traore had four of his countrymen from Mali at the Provo Recreation Center court, where two of them — standing 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-7 — were doing windmill dunks and blocking shots off the backboard. Traore, according to witnesses who were participating in open play, was putting the athletes from Mali through some drills and play designs.
Young will hire coaches who can be designated as offensive and defensive coordinators, but it’s not like he needs help figuring out the X’s and O’s of the game — even at the college level.
Young most emphatically knows the important talent elements for a team, post strength, point guard skill and shooters and how they are integrated to a successful role-playing, chemistry-sound team.
But today, at this moment, he needs recruiters.
It will be interesting to see how fast BYU moves on this.
What we learned in the surprise hire of Young, is Tom Holmoe and deputy assistant athletic director, Brian Santiago — a golfing pal of Jazz owner Ryan Smith — anticipated Pope leaving and had targeted Young way early in the process to get the ball rolling. The same early vetting happened for potential assistants. Holmoe and Santiago pulled resumes and likely placed them before Young before he signed to replace Pope.
This will be an interesting feat to watch unfold — Young’s staff — and the speed at which all involved answer the challenge.