‘I felt like I was drowning’: What Kevin Young’s first few months were like as BYU’s new basketball coach

After three or so months of nonstop recruiting, interviewing for coaching positions on his staff, practicing when June began, persuading players to remain at BYU, finding a new home in Lindon and getting his family moved there from Arizona, new Cougars basketball coach Kevin Young had finally carved out a little time for a family getaway.

Then he got COVID-19.

“So my family time got cut short by about four or five days, which was unfortunate,” he said.

The 42-year-old coach who was hired to replace Kentucky-bound Mark Pope on April 16 said it still feels like his life is “a whirlwind” since he was introduced in the Marriott Center as the 20th head basketball coach in BYU history.

Sitting in his still sparsely decorated office at the south end of the second floor of the Marriott Center Annex, Young spoke to the Deseret News Thursday about a wide range of topics related to his brief time in Provo.

“It is crazy that it has already been around four months since I got the job,” he said, when asked to describe what it has been like. “The biggest thing has been learning. I learn something new every day. Not that it is that much different from what I was doing before, but there are a lot of nuances, like the cadence of the calendar as it relates to workouts, recruiting, this and that, time off. How do you balance it all?

“That is something I was very comfortable with at my old job. So learning the cadence of the college calendar has been a big one. You know, the first couple of months, I felt like I was drowning. I was super busy. It didn’t feel like I could come up for air. It is slowing down a little bit now, starting to normalize a little bit.”

Young’s successes and achievements his first three months at BYU were documented in this piece in the Deseret News by Jackson Payne . They started with getting four-star Corner Canyon prospect Brody Kozlowski to flip from USC to BYU, continued with getting major 2022-23 season contributors Dallin Hall and Richie Saunders to return to BYU , and more recently included the signings of four-star forward Kanon Catchings and now five-star international talent Egor Demin.

He declined to name his favorite accomplishment, other than to say he is proud of the staff he has hired and the way they’ve already bonded with each other and the players who were already here, and the newcomers.

He said he’s nowhere close to settling on a starting five, saying it “isn’t on my radar yet” and not really a priority.

“All that stuff, I have learned over the years, sorts itself out. So we will see when we get there,” he said.

Young said they have filled their allotted 13 scholarships, but are “still open” to adding a few more players to the roster if the right fit becomes available.

“I think we are more set than we are not,” he said. “But things are always changing.”

A Q&A with new BYU basketball coach Kevin Young

Here’s more from our 15-minute question-and-answer session with Young. Some answers have been edited for clarity and length:

On whether he and his wife, Melissa, have found a home for them and their three children — Jude, Van and Zoey:

“Yeah, got a house (in Lindon), got schools lined up. Getting my kids’ sports things lined up. We have got a house but we have still been all over. Kids and wife have been doing some vacationing. I will go meet them at her parents’ house in Nebraska, as an example.

“So we really haven’t gotten settled in the house yet. It has been a work in progress, but for the most part we are getting there. Boxes everywhere. In fact, my in-laws are in town right now kinda helping out, getting things organized over there.”

On his success in recruiting and what has been his primary pitch to recruits:

“I heard (director of player development) Jordan Brady do an interview with somebody, and I actually liked his answer. His answer was there is really no pitch. It is more describing my background, taking that background and how we are implementing a lot of that here.

“I used this term yesterday with a different interview: It is not hypothetical, what we are talking about. Not just me, but a lot of our coaches, we have worked with really good NBA players. We kinda bring a little bit of an NBA model here.

“We think that guys who are intrigued by that will help us win college basketball games, and it is kind of a win-win, all the way around. So that has some traction to it, not just with the players, but their advisers, their families. They see what we are doing. They see the details, the development structure. Not just the detail, but the proof of concept that it has been in the NBA world. I think people have taken ahold of that.”

On the defining characteristics about this group of guys, this team:

“I would say the competitive spirit of the group has stood out. I don’t know if this is just me being a jaded former NBA coach, because you don’t get to practice hardly ever in the NBA, and you come here and these guys are going extremely hard.

“I don’t know if it is that, or just that we got a group of highly competitive guys that are pushing each other. That is hands down the thing that has stood out the most.”

On what aspect of the job has surprised him the most:

“The thing that has surprised me the most is everything it takes to get something to the finish line on the recruiting side. In terms of, it is not just, a kid calls and says, ‘Hey, I want to come to BYU,’ and it is done. That doesn’t happen. Not even close. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes work, academically, to get them in school, do all the things like that. That surprised me, for sure.”

On how he is meshing the returning guys with the newcomers, two kind of different groups:

“Yeah, I think if you knew nothing about them, and just sat down and watched practice, I don’t think you would even notice that, honestly. What you would see is the returners — Dallin (Hall) and Trevin (Knell), specifically — their leadership is really starting to stand out. So that has been great.

“As far as them all blending together, the guys we brought in are not selfish guys. They play the game the right way, which is something we tried to specifically look for. So it has been a good blend.”

On the NCAA increasing the basketball scholarship limit from 13 to 15:

“Even now there are other teams that use NIL money for the 14th and 15th (players). That is something we have talked about. But yeah, the 14 and 15 legitimate scholarships (are coming).

“It has changed our recruiting philosophy. Like, there might be a guy, a would-be freshman (we were considering), but we would go, ‘Oh, we can probably go older and get a player out of the portal.’ But now, because we have these two extra spots, maybe there is a guy we would take that if we didn’t have those, it would be harder to do.”

On if he has had any down time at all, and his go-to family vacation spot:

“We have been able to get a little bit of time together. We have some time coming up, even though the kids will be in school. We are not training (that week). We don’t have practice, so we will have a little bit of time there before we ramp up (for the season).

“It sounds funny, but every year we go to Omaha, Nebraska. That is where my wife is from. They live on a really cool lot, a little mini-farm out there. We love going out there — we have a blast. And then the last four years we have gone down to San Clemente, California. We are not doing that this year. But we will find some stuff around here to call new traditions.”