"I want to [...] make this place the best place in college basketball to prepare young men to play in the NBA. I think with my background, we're going to be able to get that done and I really look forward to doing that."
BYU Head Coach, Kevin Young
This was the goal from day one for head coach Kevin Young, as he abandoned the NBA journey for the leadership role of a university brimming with untapped potential.
That university was BYU, as I'm sure context has revealed to you by now, and the goal was to transform the school's basketball program into an NBA assembly line capable of taking in exceptional talent from across the nation and producing NBA-ready prospects.
This was the idea that brought Egor Demin to Provo. Demin, a 5-star point guard out of Moscow, to the Beehive State to play college basketball. Standing at 6'9" with playmaking upside that could make NBA scouts salivate, Egor's potential at the highest level of professional basketball was enticing to universities across the nation.
But he came to BYU because of what Kevin Young's guidance promised: a pathway to the NBA and the program to prepare himself -- physically and intellectually -- for the next step in his career.
With a season's worth of in-game action, though, Egor's draft stock slipped over the course of the season. From a lottery lock to a late teens landing, all the way to the twenties, doubts about Egor's projected value crept in from all angles, shattering both his confidence and perception among NBA scouts.
They saw an iffy handle and a concerning jump shot. A weak frame and middling athleticism. A player who might still be a few years from actual contribution at the NBA level. Weaknesses that were present before he set foot in the United States were magnified with the exposure that a Big 12 schedule will offer.
So the question must be asked: did Kevin Young and his staff improve Egor's readiness for the next level, or was the first real prospect a relative failure?
Here's my case: Egor Demin was a late bloomer who finally began to show his worth in the NCAA Tournament. With 15 points on 3-7 3-point shooting against VCU and a near-triple double against Wisconsin that tallied 11 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists, Demin stepped up at the biggest stage of his career.
Then again at the NBA Draft Combine, where he lit up the shooting drills and turned the heads of every scout and executive in attendance with 16 straight 3-balls. A broken jump shot? No sir.
And again rises Demin's stock after his freshman season's conclusion. I don't believe this to be a failure on the part of Young or his program. The truth about international players is that most have a very limited sample of film to derive any semblance of a concrete opinion. Under the microscope, every player will have his flaws.
But the end of the season showed a different Egor than was present at the beginning of the Big 12 slate. Egor became a stronger, more confident, and more well-rounded player as the season progressed, and some credit must be attributed to the "NBA pipeline" in Provo, Utah.
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