I can't say how exciting it is to begin this new season. If Kevin Young can coach even half as well as he can recruit, we are in for some really good Basketball both this year and going forward.

Also, could we maybe get over trashing Pope for leaving our program, recruiting our players, and/or not being 100% committed to BYU? He was never really ours to begin with and the man did his job while he was here, represented the church well, performed admirably, and he had success in every aspect of his job (besides going winless in post-season play). More importantly, BYU's surprise break-out season in the B12 last year with a high NCAA seed was a great stepping stone that allowed this program to show its potential and attract Kevin Young and some real investment in the NIL space by major donors along with it. Do we really think this off season (which has been truly special and historic in terms of coaching hires, NIL, and recruiting of 4 and 5 star players) would have been possible if BYU basketball were in a rebuilding situation like with some of the prior coaching changes?

While Rose took over a decent program from Cleveland that had just been to the NCAA tournament the year prior and Rose had a lot of success as BYU's winningest coach, Rose's later years were not particularly strong and Pope inherited a team that hadn't been to an NCAA tournament in over four years. So Pope left BYU basketball in better shape than he picked it up, in spite of his efforts to recruit our best players away to Kentucky. Think about the team/fan support Cleveland inherited with BYU going 1-25 the prior season. Kevin Young doesn't have to face a total or even partial rebuild like Cleveland did and I'm skeptical as to whether he would have even considered taking the job if that were the case. Young inherited a decent core group of players with a ton of fan support and then he went to work on NIL and recruiting to bring BYU to another level. We cannot observe whether this would have been possible if BYU were a dumpster fire, but I would guess not.

I guess my point is that Pope was a net positive for BYU and also that comparisons between him and KY are kind of silly given the discrepancy in NIL funding they each had to work with. I know some of the lack of NIL funding could have been Pope's own doing, but I choose to be appreciative of Pope's work here and even more appreciative of where BYU is going now. I see no advantage for us to bash Pope or wish ill upon him at this point. The Kevin Young Era begins today!