BYU Basketball: The troubling lack of player development

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RENO, NV – NOVEMBER 06: Connor Harding #44 of the Brigham Young Cougars shoots a free throw during the game between the Nevada Wolf Pack and the Brigham Young Cougars at Lawlor Events Center on November 6, 2018 in Reno, Nevada. (Photo by Jonathan Devich/Getty Images) /

Looking Forward

If this trend continues into future seasons the Cougars will be in trouble, plus they’ll be wasting some promising talent.

Next year the Cougars will bring back virtually their whole team, minus Luke Worthington and McKay Cannon. And maybe Jashire Hardnett if he transfers. Or Yoeli Childs if he goes pro.

But most will be back, and if the same players who haven’t shown much improvement so far in their careers continue the trend, next year won’t be any better than this year.

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Maybe more importantly, though, is the young talent that’s both on the team and incoming. BYU has three 4-Star freshmen on the active roster (Connor Harding, Gavin Baxter, and Kolby Lee), as well as a 4-Star sophomore redshirting after transferring (Jesse Wade).

Plus sharpshooter Trevin Knell will be back from a mission to join Shengzhe Li and Bernardo Da Silva to form a 3-Star trio of freshman next year. And there’s a pair of 3-Star returned missionaries the following year in Nate Hansen and Hunter Erickson.

There’s plenty of talent in the pipeline, but if the Cougars can’t find a way to better develop that talent we’ll see the program stagnate.

That’s not to say that the blame lies solely on the coaching staff. The players themselves have to put in the work to show those improvements, and things like injuries and personal issues have hampered players like Seljaas and Emery.

But whatever the cause, the lack of player development is a trend that needs to be reversed quickly.

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