BYU Basketball: A problem worse than the losing streak

BYU Basketball has heavily recruited out of the transfer portal since Mark Pope took over.

BYU Basketball has lost four straight games. That is a big problem. But it isn’t the biggest problem. The biggest problem is something that we don’t want to acknowledge. It’s something that as fans we have enjoyed and celebrated even. But it may be time to realize that this problem is not going to fix itself and it is time for a change.

Player development.

Since Mark Pope took over the BYU Basketball program he has leaned heavily on the transfer portal. Te’Jon Lucas, Seneca Knight, Matt Haarms and Gideon George are just some of them. For most of these players they are guys who spend one or two seasons with the Cougars before running out of eligibility.

As I mentioned last month in another article that addressed this issue, this leads to younger players not getting experience who eventually end up transferring or not being able to get playing time from their lack of game experience.

Let’s look at this year’s team. In the offseason Mark Pope went and got Seneca Knight and Te’Jon Lucas. While both players have boosted this year’s squad, they have taken almost all of the playing time away from players like Hunter Erickson, Trey Stewart and to an extent Spencer Johnson and Trevon Knell.

The issue is that next year Te’Jon Lucas will be gone and Seneca Knight may or may not be back (academic senior this year). History tells us that Pope will try to get another player in the transfer portal. But is that the best thing for the team?

It is hard to imagine that younger players would want to stick around BYU if they feel that they will never see the court. You could make a real argument that Kolby Lee is gone because he didn’t develop as much as he would have had Matt Haarms never showed up for his one year stint.

Now is this a real issue? That is where it gets complicated.

Obviously BYU wants to have the best roster every single year. If there are players out in the transfer portal that are going to make BYU better, then obviously they need to be recruited. But at the same time, transfers, like all other players, are risky and they don’t always pan out.

As an example let’s look at three players for BYU and compare them in a per 40 minutes stat line.

• Player A 13.9 points, 5.9 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 3.2 turnovers
• Player B 11.9 points, 1.8 assists, 6.3 rebounds and 1.9 turnovers
• Player C 13.4 points, 1.6 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 1.4 turnovers

Objectively speaking, all three of these players are around the same. Player A averages the most points, but also has the most turnovers. Player B is the most consistent all around but doesn’t have as great of stats.

Player A is Te’Jon Lucas, Player B is Spencer Johnson and Player C is Trevin Knell.

This brings into conversation whether or not Lucas is really helping out the team long term. While he posts a slightly better statline than Johnson or Knell, he is taking away valuable minutes from both players. Next year, Johnson and Knell will not be as good as they could be because they are missing out on 7-12  playing minutes every single game.

For the transfers to be worth it, I’d say that they need to be significantly better than what the roster already has. I’m talking a 40 minute statline that looks like 20+ points, 5+ rebounds, 4+ assists and < 2 turnovers. Otherwise the team is trading a player developing year after year for a short term fix that really only results in maybe an extra basket, rebound and assist.

What do you think? Should Mark Pope continue to pursue the transfer portal has hard as he has so far, or allow for player development to take place?