Elijah Bryant announces he's taking next step in basketball career

Congratulations EB and good luck on the future.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85zwAEEjt54

He's graduated from college and wants to start his career. I have zero problems with this. I wish him only the best. We'll miss him

With Bryant officially moving on and assuming that Emery is back next year, that leaves BYU with only a single scholarship too many. This assumes that returned missionaries Gavin Baxter and Connor Harding both are with the team this fall as scholarship players. It also means the team will only have 3 seniors instead of 4 (Cannon, Shaw, Worthington).

We suck, and will continue to suck. Anyone who buys a ticket next year is wasting their money.

Mars wrote:

We suck, and will continue to suck. Anyone who buys a ticket next year is wasting their money.

Nah, we don't "suck". But we are certainly mediocre and change from that isn't evident at this point.


986679411951878145

Writing was on the wall when he started using his own logo.



Going to miss watching Sideshow Bob playing for the Cougs.



Maybe McKay Cannon can regain his first two games' form and fill the gap?

Will leave a hole in the offense. If Childs goes (doubt it) we really are screwed.



Emery just is not the same player as Bryant. Bryant is much more consistent and stronger. So I don't see Emery filling the gap.



Childs will need to become more dominant. Hardnett, if he stays, will need to chip in more points, and Haws will need to become a more consistent scorer.



The biggest thing, though, is Rose will need to significantly up his game. For the last few years we've heard a lot of excuses from him.

Gunk wrote:

Will leave a hole in the offense. If Childs goes (doubt it) we really are screwed.

From what I've been hearing, Eli leaving makes it more likely that Childs will also not return -- less for him to come back to.

snoscythe wrote:

Will leave a hole in the offense. If Childs goes (doubt it) we really are screwed.

From what I've been hearing, Eli leaving makes it more likely that Childs will also not return -- less for him to come back to.

I guess I am not surprised to hear that. If we lose Childs that's a really big black eye on Rose. Mika early and then Childs. If we can't retain our bigs, we're sunk.



If GU can convince bigs to stick around in the current NCAA and NBA climate, why can't we.

What is going on with this coaching staff they are just bleeding talent each year?



Time for a change at the top.

snoscythe wrote:



Maybe McKay Cannon can regain his first two games' form and fill the gap?

I appreciate this attempt at humor.

Gunk wrote:

Gunk wrote:

Will leave a hole in the offense. If Childs goes (doubt it) we really are screwed.

From what I've been hearing, Eli leaving makes it more likely that Childs will also not return -- less for him to come back to.

I guess I am not surprised to hear that. If we lose Childs that's a really big black eye on Rose. Mika early and then Childs. If we can't retain our bigs, we're sunk.



If GU can convince bigs to stick around in the current NCAA and NBA climate, why can't we.

Signed,



Zach Collins

Maybe we just need to stop recruiting people who go on missions.



People 23 and 24 years old, who have pro opportunities and families to support want to start making that dough. Eli had a lot to come back to at BYU with the team next year, but has graduated and will make money in the G league,so why not go?



He is a bad knee away from never playing basketball ever again. He needs to go get that money while he is still young.

Brayden Green wrote:

Maybe we just need to stop recruiting people who go on missions.



People 23 and 24 years old, who have pro opportunities and families to support want to start making that dough. Eli had a lot to come back to at BYU with the team next year, but has graduated and will make money in the G league,so why not go?



He is a bad knee away from never playing basketball ever again. He needs to go get that money while he is still young.

Elijah Bryant went on a mission?

SpiffCoug wrote:

Maybe we just need to stop recruiting people who go on missions.



People 23 and 24 years old, who have pro opportunities and families to support want to start making that dough. Eli had a lot to come back to at BYU with the team next year, but has graduated and will make money in the G league,so why not go?



He is a bad knee away from never playing basketball ever again. He needs to go get that money while he is still young.

Elijah Bryant went on a mission?

No, but he is 23, married and also graduated. He could have had an awesome year next year, and we would have had a lot of returning experience with him, but I understand it.



We have to face the reality with the G-league developing, and international basketball becoming stronger and stronger that our "older" players will leave to go get money.



If you listen to his interview, there was nothing that he said about internal conflict. The program is fine. Rose is fine. He wants to chase his dream, and he has a degree so those that would float that argument don't even have that argument.

Our players don't get to have sex unless they get married. When you get married, reality starts to take over very fast. Bills are bigger than they ever were. This is a huge reality that we singularly face with the honor code. If our kids could have sex and play basketball they would be a lot less likely to marry. You don't see any other program in the nation with more than 50% of it's players at anytime married.



These are adults with adult responsibilities, and they need to be making adult paychecks, not eating mac and cheese and snoozing through 14th Century French literature.



It isn't a Rose thing. INsert coach X in his place, and it would be the same.



Welcome to the new reality. Switch to Football, where they still have an age limit, or accept the new New (or push for these kids to be paid competitively for the entertainment they provide).



Or, start a meaningless campaign to fire a great coach for something beyond his control.

Brayden Green wrote:

Our players don't get to have sex unless they get married. When you get married, reality starts to take over very fast. Bills are bigger than they ever were. This is a huge reality that we singularly face with the honor code. If our kids could have sex and play basketball they would be a lot less likely to marry. You don't see any other program in the nation with more than 50% of it's players at anytime married.



These are adults with adult responsibilities, and they need to be making adult paychecks, not eating mac and cheese and snoozing through 14th Century French literature.



It isn't a Rose thing. INsert coach X in his place, and it would be the same.



Welcome to the new reality. Switch to Football, where they still have an age limit, or accept the new New (or push for these kids to be paid competitively for the entertainment they provide).



Or, start a meaningless campaign to fire a great coach for something beyond his control.

Not buying this take for a second

I've tried to stay out of this argument because I do respect his decision to leave. Just my take. The only reason to leave college early is if you have guaranteed NBA potential or no NBA potential and are forced to feed your family right away. If you have guaranteed NBA potential the decision is obvious, if you have no NBA potential and need to start supporting a family then I guess you go to Europe and play. IMO Bryant is not an NBA player right now, if he could develop into one next year, he is making a terrible decision. If he is never going to develop into an NBA player, whatever he wants to do for his family is probably the good decision. As far as letting players have sex in order to stay at BYU, that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. We had basketball players and football players stay until their Sr years with this same honor code for decades and now we need to let them have sex in order to stay at BYU? Come on. As far as firing the coach because his players leave the program early, also the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I still haven't had even one of you posters tell me who we could get that could do as good of a job as Coach Rose right now if we let him go, let alone who could actually improve our program. Firing him would be a colossal error, IMO, bigger than letting Coach Mendenhall go.

I have zero problem with Bryant's choice.



He has his (or will have next month) degree.



He has no plans to pursue a graduate degree.



He has recurring knee issues, and just finished his first wire-to-wire no knee injury season since high school.



So what do BYU fans want him to do? Come back for a year to work on a degree he doesn't want and has no intention of seeing through to completion and risk a career-ending injury just to get in an extra year of film for NBA scouts?



I think Eli is a smart guy who, unlike Mika, made the right call for himself here.

Honestly, it makes sense for Bryant. The anger here is mostly built up from Mika, Plaisted, and possibly Childs.