Big turnaround made BYU’s 2024-25 basketball season historic – Deseret News

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After sitting on the thought all season, BYU basketball coach Kevin Young finally let it out in the postgame news conference from the dais in Newark, New Jersey, and again to a smaller group of reporters in the hallway at Prudential Center after the Cougars were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by Alabama’s otherworldly 3-point shooting.

Noting that he didn’t want to “speak out of both sides of my mouth” after saying all season that he was “not a big expectations guy,” Young decided it was the right time to acknowledge that, indeed, the 2024-25 Cougars did surpass what was expected of them.

Boy, did they ever.

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“I told them in there I was proud of them,” Young said, pointing in the direction of BYU’s locker room last Thursday night. “This was a team that was picked ninth in the Big 12. And we end up being one of the last 16 teams in the entire country standing.”

Certainly, making the Sweet 16 for only the third time in BYU basketball history qualifies as a step in the right direction for the program that just two years ago finished No. 85 in the NET rankings and posted its first losing conference record since 2004-05.

A huge step, really.

Building upon the groundwork laid by Mark Pope before he departed for Kentucky, Young delivered on the promises he made in April 2024 that he would make BYU fans proud of their program again by winning NCAA Tournament games, attracting some of the top players in the country, and getting them ready for the NBA.

Check, check and check.

“I have been pretty clear that we are trying to establish something that is big time at BYU, building on the very successful program they have had for many years,” Young said. “This was a step in the right direction as far as trying to elevate it. So for that I am proud of our players and our staff.”

As has been well-documented, there were…

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Source link : https://www.deseret.com/sports/2025/04/01/byu-basketball-season-wrap-review-kevin-young-saunders-keita-demin/

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Publish date : 2025-04-02 03:00:00

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