BYU Basketball: Projecting the rotation until Nick Emery’s return
By Shaun Gordon
With a mixture of veterans and new faces, BYU Basketball has two exhibition games to solidify a rotation, and they have to do it without Nick Emery for nine games.
BYU Basketball gets to play their first game against another team on Wednesday night.
Sure, it’s just an exhibition game against Division II Saint Martin’s, but it’s Cougar basketball nonetheless.
Head coach Dave Rose has two exhibition games to experiment with the lineups and find a solid rotation.
That’ll be even more tricky and more important with Nick Emery out for the first nine games of the season. He won’t hit the court until the Cougars take on Utah in early December, so Rose has to build a rotation without one of his key players.
Once Emery returns the rotation will probably look quite different, so we’ll focus on the pre-Emery rotation for now.
Let’s take a look at how the rotation is likely to shake out over the first nine games:
The Bench (Little to No Playing Time)
Gavin Baxter – There’s a very good chance that Baxter moves himself into the rotation sooner rather than later. He’s talented and athletic, but he still hasn’t adjusted to college ball and still makes enough mistakes to keep his minutes low at first.
Kolby Lee – Lee would probably start the season in the rotation purely out of lack of depth in the post, but he’s battling a leg injury right now and there’s no telling when he’ll be good to go. He’ll have to get back up to speed once he’s healed before he gains solid minutes.
Taylor Maughan – The BYU-Hawaii transfer looked good in the Cougar Tipoff, but only the coaches know if he’s earned playing time through practices so far. Until we see him perform well against other teams there’s no reason to expect much playing time.
Evan Troy – There’s a decent chance Troy could supplant McKay Cannon in the guard rotation if Cannon struggles. Just like Maughan, Troy looked good in the scrimmage, but he didn’t see much time last year and there’s no evidence so far to show anything different is expected this year.