On Thursday, BYU basketball head coach Kevin Young addressed the media for the first time since his April introduction.
The event, attended by more media than usual for a summer BYU basketball update, was held inside the Marriott Center Annex.
As they walked onto the floor, the media saw former Utah big man Keba Keita shooting free throws in his new BYU gear. Richie Saunders and Dallin Hall, who had briefly entered the Transfer Portal, were also back in the Annex.
BYU basketball coach Kevin Young officially has his five assistants
Of course, there were all the new faces on the coaching staff. Thursday was Young’s first full day with his officially announced assistants.
The assistant coaches are former G-League head coach Will Voigt, Tim Fanning from Overtime Elite, Saint Joseph’s assistant John Linehan, former Utah assistant Chris Burgess, and former Stanford assistant Brandon Dunson.
Young anticipates each coach contributing something unique to the program.
In the college space, there’s recruiting expertise, then there’s on-court expertise. So every guy that I brought in has a specific niche in the recruiting world, whether that’s geographic, whether that’s networks, and so forth. So each one brings something different there,” said Young.
Recruiting expertise
Recruiting has been successful for Young, who has mostly worked in professional basketball for the past 15 years. Since his hiring, BYU has secured four-star recruit Brody Kozlowski from Corner Canyon High School, who had connections to Chris Burgess and BYU.
Burgess played a crucial role in recruiting Keba Keita from Utah.
BYU also secured four-star point guard Elijah Crawford, who had initially committed to Stanford and was recruited by Brandon Dunson.
The highlight of the 2024 recruiting cycle for BYU was Egor Demin from Real Madrid. With coaches like Young, Voigt, Fanning, and Burgess boasting strong connections to international prospects and their agents, BYU had a significant advantage in securing Demin.
On-court expertise
Then from a tactical side, I’ll have guys broken up similar to a football staff with the offensive and defensive kind of lanes, and heavy in the player development space as well, and then some special projects. Those are kind of the buckets that they will fill.”
Young has often functioned as an “offensive coordinator” for numerous NBA and G-League teams. Thus, one might assume he’d play a significant role in shaping BYU’s on-court strategy. However, Young hasn’t made any official decisions yet regarding these roles.
The same uncertainty applies to the defensive strategy.
Will Voigt, known for defensive prowess, notably developed the “Peel Switch” defense with the Angola National Team.
It’s still a work in progress,” Young said. “I was mainly focused on people first. Obviously, I’ve coached against Will forever. So he’s a really good basketball coach and he’s not just a defensive guy. That’s where he’s kind of made his mark, so I’ll definitely lean on him a lot there. But regardless of where guys sort of lie and their expertise, I want these guys to be extremely well-rounded.”
BYU basketball was patient by design to bring the staff together
Young was hired midway through April and didn’t officially announce his staff until the first week of June. He acknowledges that it was his own decision to be patient in assembling the staff.
“I think everything starts with the people; personality fits, are they a good person? That’s the number one thing,” Young said.
Then obviously, within that, what boxes can they check for me? Whether that’s college expertise, international expertise, or tactical expertise, and that’s why I didn’t just rush out and hire five guys out of the gate. It was a process to make sure we got the right people in here and we went through a pretty good vetting process. Obviously, I had a relationship with the majority of them, but using some of the administration here to vet these guys with me and do it together.”
