NEWARK, N.J. — The Utahns on BYU’s roster have faint memories of the last time the Cougars made the Sweet 16, the 2010-11 team led by Jimmer Fredette.
“I probably was in school watching them, trying to sneak it on my phone and trying to tune in,” North Salt Lake native Trevin Knell said Wednesday.
BYU has matched that feat in Kevin Young’s first season as its coach. Now the sixth-seeded Cougars are preparing to face second-seeded Alabama, a rising basketball power in its own right, in the East Region semifinals on Thursday.
Young, who hails from Salt Lake City, took the BYU job last spring after building up a resume in the G League and as an NBA assistant. He wants the Cougars (26-9) to be a premier destination for developing players into professional talent.
His days doing advance scouting for the Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns have turned out to be another built-in advantage.
“I’ve referenced many of those game plans often with our coaching staff and with our players,” Young said. “I think when you can say, ‘This is how we stopped Dame Lillard’ or ‘This is how we stopped whoever,’ that gives them bright eyes and they listen a little bit more.”
One of the Cougars’ chief tasks Thursday will be stopping Mark Sears, the two-time All-American guard who averages 18.6 points and 5.0 assists to lead Alabama.
The Crimson Tide (27-8) have reached their third straight Sweet 16 and their fourth in five years, and Sears has played 12 NCAA Tournament games between Ohio (2021) and Alabama.
He is the engine of an Alabama offense that ranks No. 1 in Division I in both scoring (90.8 ppg) and tempo (per KenPom.com).
“We’ve been practicing making the reads going 100 percent and going fast, and now it’s just making the right reads,” Sears said. “We always play with creating advantages. So when we’re playing that fast, we’re going to most likely create an advantage within six seconds.”
Sears had 22 points and 10 assists against Robert Morris in the first round, and six players scored in double figures in Alabama’s second-round win over Saint Mary’s.
If Alabama’s offense is known for speed, BYU’s hallmark is efficiency. The Cougars rank top-30 in 3-point percentage (37.3 percent) and top-10 on 2-pointers (58.4 percent).
“We can’t give them simple threes,” Sears said. “Simple threes is they just shoot a three, rock you to sleep, right in your face. And we’ve got to do a great job of that and we’ve got to try to limit rotations as much as possible.”
Richie Saunders leads the Cougars with 16.3 ppg and shoots 43.1 percent from the arc, and he scored a team-high 25 in their 91-89 victory over Wisconsin in the second round. But another seven BYU players post between 6.9 and 10.5 points per contest.
Alabama coach Nate Oats said BYU runs one of the more modern offenses in the sport, and he complimented Young for his success in Year 1. Oats knows something about being a hotshot coach on the rise, from turning Buffalo into a frequent tournament team to his consistent success with Alabama, including a Final Four last year.
With a heavy investment in athletics, BYU is building in that direction. The players also enjoy having access to a program legend like Fredette.
“I’ve been talking to Jimmer a ton,” Knell said. “He’s given me a ton of help, a ton of advice for the first two rounds, and then I called him again on Monday and he gave me some advice going into the Sweet 16.
“Jimmer, he won two games in Denver and then the Sweet 16, so it’s fun to write our history but also replay that history, as well.”
–Adam Zielonka, Field Level Media
