My perspective probably follows more traditional thinking about BYU basketball recruiting, that is, to get the best LDS talent available and develop them in your program and approach, and supplement that with other plays who "fit" the system or setting as well as possible. So, I have a built-in bias to see a player like Davis or Cooper Lewis (now going to St. Mary's), and think to myself - those are "must get" guys for BYU.

I think Mark Pope shifted this thinking quite a bit, as he very selectively looked at LDS talent (Richie Saunders at Wasatch, Collin Chandler), etc., and brought in quite a few other players he hoped would fit in his system at BYU (Gideon George, etc.). Which approach is right for the Big 12?

I think a lot of folks now think that to compete consistently in the Big 12, BYU has to recruit very differently - Big 12 athletes are "different." BYU ran a system this last year that allowed them to find competitive advantages versus such athletes, and it was innovative - volume 3-point shooting, wedge rebounding, etc. And, they did it with a mixture of traditional BYU recruits and others working together.

It's hard for me to let go of that traditional mindset, because BYU has had competitive teams for a long while under Reid, Cleveland, Rose and Pope - but we were in different conferences. My mindset still values recruiting from the traditional BYU pool of recruits, like Isaac Davis or Cooper Lewis - I think both of those players are D-1 athletes with solid skill that will just improve with good coaching, and become valuable contributors in a D-1 program. And, I like the idea of building continuity with recruits from the HS ranks and just supplement a bit from the portal - and I think BYU is uniquely positioned because of its culture to retain players and so so. But, it's a new era - and maybe the pressure to move forward in different ways now means that such thinking is too old-school and perhaps ineffective.