Patrick Kinahan: Deep pockets reputation stays attached to BYU basketball

PROVO — Simply put, no matter all the protests, BYU has a perception problem with NIL and its men's basketball program.

The truth is, even if that is a relative term in this case, many in the sport believe BYU is using enormous amounts of money through the name, likeness, and image rules to add elite talent to the basketball team.

Certainly, it's pointless to argue that NIL hasn't helped coach Kevin Young to add the type of players not normally associated with the Cougars.

Since 2004, only two BYU players (Jimmer Fredette and Rafael Araujo) were drafted in the NBA's first round. One year into Young's regime, BYU point guard Egor Demin is expected to go in the first round in June followed by incoming recruit AJ Dybantsa next year.

Neither player fits BYU's decades-old pattern of relying on LDS players to comprise nearly the entire roster. Demin and Dybantsa aren't members of the school's sponsoring faith, thus creating the belief that BYU is outbidding other premiere basketball schools for the type of talent that doesn't fit the traditional mode.

Dousing the fire with more gasoline, several weeks ago an ESPN story quoted an affluent BYU booster saying, "You will not outbid us."

The pay-for-play narrative was further amplified this week with the reported commitment of Robert Wright III. Upon losing Demin to the NBA and two other point guards to the transfer portal, BYU is getting the transfer from Baylor to assume the position.

Here's where it gets sensitive for BYU, whose administrators and internal media have tried to downplay the money situation. True or not, the thought is Wright is getting a boatload of cash to leave one Big 12 program for another.

Playing in 35 games with 21 starts as freshman last season, Wright averaged 11.5 points and 4.2 assists. He earned all-Big 12 honorable mention and made the all-freshmen team, the same honors as Demin.

As he's done on multiple occasions through different methods, church education commissioner Clark Gilbert posted on social media the following principles for BYU athletics:

• No Church funding, no debt.
• Engage in NIL competitively, but never the highest bidder.
• Focus on mission, coaching, BYU environment.

Immediate responses followed along affiliations, with BYU sympathizers falling in line with Gilbert's sentiments. Some outsiders weren't buying it.

"Never the highest bidder? Cmon man." USA Today national columnist Dan Wolken wrote on X in reply to Gilbert's post.

No matter how hard it tries, BYU can't shake the reputation it has acquired virtually overnight. Something about "you will not outbid us" that has legs.

Speaking to the Deseret News, BYU advancement vice president Keith Vorkink shot down the quote, saying outbidding other schools "is not the strategy of the university."

He added: "We will have decided we are in the game, and we want to be competitive, but we don't want to be a school where a student-athlete is choosing to come here predominantly because of the compensation they would be able to get through some NIL agreement. We want that choice to be driven by our distinctive mission and culture."

To be sure, Young and his staff have built an attractive program in a short time. The heavy emphasis on the NBA influence has helped create a competitive environment and offers reasons to expect sustained success.

In media availability the day before BYU's Sweet 16 loss to Alabama, Young downplayed the importance of NIL in recruiting. He sees it as one of many factors in choosing a program.

"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."

Semantics are also involved here, meaning large portions of the financial packages come from boosters rather than the individual schools. This allows all schools to say they don't directly pay all the money players get, even if the public and media count it as all the same.

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