With plenty of talent and potential, BYU basketball is still a work in progress

PROVO — Perhaps the offseason hype created by BYU's hiring of former Phoenix Suns rising coaching star Kevin Young and the additions of five-star rookie Egor Demin and fellow NBA Draft hopeful Kanon Catchings is fundamental Narrative of Cougars' 2024-25 season overshadowed.

While the program returned a core of players from last year's top-half team to the Big 12, it also lost its leading scorer and brought in six new faces who saw action Friday night.

This clearly led to several defensive errors and communication breakdowns against a UC Riverside team that returned most of its roster, including reigning Big West Freshman of the Year Barrington Hargress.

So take any criticism of the Cougars and their Big 12-level talent with a grain of salt after just two games. But poor 3-point shooting performance – both takes and makes – and trouble at the free throw line could unsettle Young and his team.

Of course, it's easier to take criticism and identify blind spots during wins than it is during losses, and that's what BYU men's basketball felt after a brilliant performance from former Wasatch Academy teammates Fousseyni Traore and Keba Keita in the 86-80 win on Friday night over UC Riverside at the top of 17,381 fans at the Marriott Center.

“I mean, we need to understand each other. I think that's the first thing,” said BYU winger Richie Saunders, who had 12 points, six rebounds, a steal and a chase-down block that may have been the game-winning shot. “But given the adversity that it was, I came out with a win and I think that’s the greatest thing I can show.”

“There's a lot of things we need to clarify or improve on and we're going to, you know… we're new to each other and that's why we have these games.”

Commendable is UC Riverside, an 0-2 team that gave Oregon all it could handle in a 91-75 season-opening loss in Eugene four days before a sold-out student section at the Marriott Center. The Highlanders (0-2) had four scorers in double figures, led by Kaleb Smith's 20 points and four rebounds, and made 11 of 28 three-pointers, including five in the second half, to reduce a 17-point deficit to 6 at the wire-to-wire. Wire win by BYU.

There will be points of contention in this scouting report for BYU, including shutting down shooters, creating space with the more troublesome perimeter defenses the Cougars are expected to see starting in January in the country's top college basketball conference, and others too expected improvements.

It's Game 2. No team in college basketball is a finished product, and BYU shouldn't be held to that standard either. But one thing stood out in the Cougars' first two regular season games, and they have little to do with their opponents: free throws.

The Cougars shot just 14 of 26 in the charity stripe against the Highlanders, including 2 of 6 from Demin, who otherwise excelled as a point guard with 20 points, seven assists and five rebounds with just two turnovers.

He wasn't alone; Keita was 4 of 6 from the free throw line, Dawson Baker was 3 of 4 and Saunders, Traore and Trevin Knell each converted 1 of 2. Only Mihailo Boskovic had a 100 percent conversion rate, a perfect 2-of-2 on the night .

“We found a way to win the game and that was it,” Demin told BYUtv. “And I found a way to practice more free throws. I'm not going to lie, I have to work on it in the morning. Everyone found something in this game.”

Add to that the 7-of-11 shooting in Tuesday's 88-50 win over Central Arkansas, and the Cougars are 21-of-37 from the starting line – a cause for concern, Young admits.

“It was a common theme in some of these exhibition games as well,” he said. “There is no real magical secret. You have to step up there and knock them down. We’re trying to encourage our guys to shoot as many as they can, so we’ll just keep working on it.”

There were no excuses from the BYU locker room either.

“We shot enough free throws to make it,” Saunders added. “You just have to do it under pressure again and do it in front of 20,000 people watching you and we will. It just goes out and does it. That’s all it means to really just create them.”

“We've shot enough free throws in our lives and even in the last week to never miss them. We’ll figure it out and get there.”

BYU returns to regular season play against Queens (NC) on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. MST before hosting Idaho at the Marriott Center next Saturday, November 16th at 1:00 p.m. MST.