BYU Basketball: Remember when BYU was supposed to make the Final Four in 2019?
By Adam Gibby
In 2015, BYU Basketball fans were looking at 2019 as the year that BYU could finally reach the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament. What happened?
Seniors Nick Emery, TJ Haws, Eric Mika, and Elijah Bryant with junior Yoeli Childs as starters and Payton Dastrup, Zac Seljaas, Jordan Chapman Luke Worthington and Jakob Hartsock as strong backups was what BYU Basketball fans were anticipating in the summer of 2015.
Yet here we are with BYU sitting at 19-14 and unsure whether they will even get a lower seed in the NIT. What happened? Well a lot of things happened and it isn’t as simple as players leaving.
Coaching Changes
Basketball is different from football in that a position coach doesn’t essentially run a part of the offense or defense, however assistant coaches do have a huge impact on the team. In 2014 when the core of players were either about to join the team or go on their missions, Dave Rose, Tim LaComb and Terry Nashif and Mark Pope were all long time coaches that had been to the NCAA Tournament consistently.
Since that time, the coaching staff has seen Mark Pope leave for UVU, Terry Nashif leave for a different career path and the addition and loss of Heath Schroyer after just one season. Finally, Lee Cummard was added this season to the staff after serving as a graduate assistant.
It can be hard to know exactly how much these changes affected the team’s playing style or players leaving, but it most definitely did have an effect on the team.