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PROVO — Take it from the legend himself, count on BYU basketball continuing to enjoy success in the NCAA Tournament.
Jimmer Fredette believes this season's run to the Sweet 16 is not one shining moment, citing the NIL coffers that allows BYU to compete with the game's best college programs along with coach Kevin Young's resume as a longtime NBA assistant.
Before this season, Fredette led the Cougars to their last Sweet 16 appearance in 2011 for only the second time since 1981. But in less than one year, Young infused the program with future NBA point guard Egor Demin for the recent season and incoming potential 2026 No. 1 draft pick AJ Dybantsa.
"I don't see this as being like an anomaly," Fredette said during a SiriusXM radio interview. "I see this being something that's kind of the norm moving forward for BYU. You may not get the No. 1 player every single year like you are in AJ, but I think they're going to get really highly recruited players coming in and do well in the transfer portal."
Like virtually every program immediately after the transfer portal opens, BYU is trying to land sought-after players. International player Dominque Diomande, who sat out last season at Washington, already is on board for the Cougars.
Since signing Dybantsa, who plans to enroll next month, BYU has attracted national attention to land the quality talent not traditionally associated with the program.
An ESPN.com story that quoted a booster saying nobody will outbid BYU shocked longtime followers of the athletic department, but Young does get a bit defensive over the program's deep pockets.
"You've got to have the whole package," he said. "You can't just have part of it."
In the press conference the day before BYU lost to Alabama last week, Young was asked about name, image, and likeness factoring into the program's success. He addressed the importance of NIL but extended the focus to all of BYU's positives.
"If you can show me a school whose donor bases don't deserve credit, I'm all ears. That's just what it is," he said. "People make a lot of that in today's landscape, but I think any more that's just the starting point. That's not a separator in my opinion, especially as things are changing even more.
"When that stuff starts getting a little bit more regulated, it's not going to be a needle mover. It's going to be the starting point. That being said, one of the reasons why I wanted to come to BYU was because of the fan base, donor base, base in general. A lot of people have school pride, but I think BYU is unmatched, quite frankly, just in terms of how much people love the school and what it stands for."
Young went on to note all the start-up businesses and tech companies along the Wasatch Front, saying a good portion of them were developed by BYU alumni. Apparently, those are the types of boosters willing to help catapult the basketball team into consistent national prominence.
