BYU men’s basketball season marked by promise and missed opportunities

PORTLAND, Ore.— BYU’s season didn’t collapse all at once.

It slipped slowly and unevenly, until the team that opened the year barely resembled the one that walked off the floor Thursday night after a Round of 64 loss to Texas.

When BYU landed top recruit AJ Dybantsa and transfer Rob Wright III, it didn’t just raise the program’s ceiling long term; it immediately shifted expectations. With an increased NIL fund and confidence in coach Kevin Young’s ability to turn BYU into an NBA pipeline, there was a sense that the Cougars could become serious postseason contenders for this season and years to come.

But before reaching the first game, transfer guard Nate Pickens, expected to be Wright’s backup, was done for the year with ankle surgery, along with sophomore forward Brody Kozlowski, who has dealt with lingering injuries since being involved in a serious car accident during his senior year of high school.

At the time, it felt manageable. Teams deal with preseason injuries all the time, and early on, BYU looked like one that could absorb them without much disruption.

Even when senior guard Dawson Baker went down with a torn ACL against Miami in the first round of the ESPN Events Invitational over Thanksgiving, it didn’t immediately derail the team.

They just kept winning.

In fact, they ran to 17–2, highlighted by a blowout win over No. 23 Wisconsin in Salt Lake City and a buzzer-beating win over Clemson at Madison Square Garden.

Still, though, it never quite felt right.

The Cougars spent much of the season clawing out of first-half holes, regularly falling behind before finding a way to settle in.

Early on, they could overcome it. But over time, that margin disappeared, leading to a four-game losing streak in late January that nearly dropped them out of the AP Top 25.

To make matters worse, just as the Cougars looked to regain momentum with a road win at Baylor, Richie Saunders tore his ACL in the opening minutes of a home game against Colorado.

BYU would go on to win in overtime, but it was a back-breaker for any realistic shot at making a run in the Big 12 or NCAA Tournament.

As Dybantsa said after Thursday’s loss to Texas, “Richie was our vocal leader, so I kind of had to step up and be that.”

Despite Dybantsa’s efforts, it wasn’t enough. BYU lost to Houston in the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals, 73–66, and then fell to Texas in the Round of 64, 79–71, in a game where Texas physically dominated and outworked them.

For Young, it often felt like he was trying to hold a sinking ship together for nearly two months in the final stretch of the season. Effort and discipline from his players became a glaring concern on a nightly basis, raising questions about whether he and his staff constructed the roster as well as they could have.

After the loss to Texas, he was asked about the roster and whether he would do anything differently.

“I think it's hard to evaluate this year in terms of that question because, again, I'm not crying over spilled milk; things happen in life, you have to figure it out,” Young said.

He added, “We were never able to see it with five season-ending injuries, which is crazy.”

Bright spots
All that said, there are still positives that can be taken out of this season.

Dybantsa lived up to expectations, earning Big 12 Freshman of the Year honors, AP First Team All-American recognition, finishing as the nation’s leading scorer at 25.5 points per game, and positioning himself as a projected top-two pick in the NBA Draft.

Wright averaged just over 18 points per game and shot 41% from three. Players like Khadim Mboup, Aleksej Kostić and Dominique Diomande developed into reliable contributors late in the season, giving BYU pieces to build around next year.

But all-in-all, that’s not how this season will be remembered.

For everything it showed early, it ends as arguably the biggest “what if” team in school history. A team with real Final Four potential, and one of the nation’s best players in Dybantsa, who delivered on nearly everything he’d promised, never fully held together long enough to reach it.