The Kevin Young Conundrum: How Will BYU Basketball’s New Coach Distribute Minutes?

Coach Young has a dilemma on his hands, and it’s all thanks to his own success in recruiting top talent to Provo.

With six highly touted newcomers joining six solid contributors from last season, the BYU basketball team is looking more stacked than ever. But with only so many minutes to go around, Coach Young has a tough task ahead of him: keeping everyone happy.

“I just feel like he is super genuine with what he says,” said returning starter Trevin Knell of Coach Young.

According to Knell, the team has already learned that there are “no hidden agendas” and that everyone just wants to win. But we’ll see about that.

The roster is a veritable embarrassment of riches, with talent at almost every position. Certainly, the departures of Jaxson Robinson, Noah Waterman, and Aly Khalifa will be felt, but the general consensus is that the 2024-25 roster is an upgrade across the board.

Trevin Knell is just one of the returning starters who will be vying for minutes this season.

The current 14-man roster includes two returning walk-ons, six returning contributors from last year, and the much-hyped six newcomers. Redshirt junior Dawson Baker, juniors Richie Saunders and Dallin Hall, graduate Knell, and seniors Trey Stewart and Fousseyni Traore provide a solid foundation for the new coaching staff to build upon.

“BYU fans are going to love it,” Knell said. “Cougar Nation is going to be stoked when it sees these guys play and sees coach Young do his thing, and see how he brings it all together. He’s an impressive leader.”

Two of the six new faces belong to transfers, former Utah center Keba Keita and defensive ace Mawot Mag, a 6-foot-7 graduate student from Rutgers. Mag, who was born in Sudan and moved to Melbourne, Australia, when he was 2 years old, made 41 starts and appeared in 80 games for the Scarlet Knights.

Mawot Mag could be the defensive stopper that the Cougars have been missing.

The four incoming freshmen are all candidates to earn starting spots. Has that ever been said about a group of BYU freshmen? They are Kanon Catchings, Egor Demin, Elijah Crawford, and Corner Canyon product Brody Kozlowski; Catchings was a Purdue commit, Crawford a Stanford commit, and Kozlowski a USC commit before Coach Young got them to reverse course.

“I like the character of the group, something that we have added quite a bit with every guy we’ve brought in,” Young said on “Cougar Sports Nation.” “That’s something that’s very similar to the way NBA teams operate. So the character of our group, I think, is really high.”

Coach Young said the coaches he has brought in understand “the BYU way, and we’ve been mindful of that.”

Suffice it to say that the BYU basketball team won’t be picked to finish 13th again in the Big 12. Expectations are already sky high — in and out of the program.

The BYU basketball team is looking to make a big impact in the Big 12 this season.

As for the open scholarship, Coach Young said on June 6 that he would like to use it, but is also cognizant of the fact that it could be nice to stay flexible with it and add a newcomer midway through the season, in December.

The prevailing notion is that BYU needs more size, although Coach Young believes a college team can never have enough outstanding shooters. BYU doesn’t have a player on the current roster taller than 6-9.

Coach Young has a tough task ahead of him, but he’s confident in his team’s abilities.