PROVO — D McCleary was a second-team all-state point guard at Riverton High School, where he also lettered in football and tennis.

But he didn’t want his basketball career to end. No scholarship offer came from any Division I schools, so he tried his hand outside of the continental United States.

The 6-foot, 173-pound guard made the basketball team as a walk-on at BYU-Hawaii, and he thought his dreams of playing college basketball were working out at the Division II school in Laie, Hawaii.

But while serving a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Indonesia, he got a call that devastated him: BYU-Hawaii was dropping the program.

The church-run school was phasing out its athletic department, the university announced in 2014, and McCleary’s role as a reserve point guard was called into question.

“It sucked; it ruined my week,” McCleary said after putting up seven points and three assists in a 110-63 loss at BYU last week. “But I wasn’t really focused on basketball that much, which helped.”

McCleary, who is still a walk-on, hasn’t received any offers to play at another college. He’s still exploring his options, but when the 2016-17 season ends at BYU-Hawaii, he and his teammates will go their separate ways.

Some will continue at school, being just a few credits away from graduation. Others, like leading scorer Tanner Nelson, have already decided they will continue playing college basketball — even if they don’t know where.

“I knew I was going to have to transfer after this year,” said Nelson, who had a game-high 17 points, seven rebounds and three assists against the Cougars. “But I’m not worrying about that too much now. I’m focusing on making the best of this last year.”

That’s all the Seasiders can do. Every game isn’t just an opportunity to compete and win; it’s also a tryout for the top players to continue to play basketball, even when they don’t have a spot to go.

NCAA rules prevent opposing coaches from contacting BYU-Hawaii players before the season ends. But they can watch them play, scout them for the future, and make decisions.

Barring an invitation to the NCAA Division II Tournament, BYU-Hawaii’s final season will end around March 2 at the PacWest Conference championships in Irvine, California. Head coach Gabriel Roberts will likely be relieved of his duties, and his players will be released from their scholarships — at least those like Nelson who have them.

An air of mystery shrouds the program as it embarks on its final season.

And still one question remains: Why did the university and Church Education System cut a mostly self-sustaining athletic department — and the chance at a college education for its athletes — for its hundreds of student-athletes?

No answers have come, and none is expected before the lights go dark in Laie, Hawaii.

“I don’t know what I am doing next year, but it’s going away and we just have to accept it,” McCleary said. “We know it’s the last year and we just have to play hard now.”

***

Gabriel Roberts is the man tasked with turning out the lights on the BYU-Hawaii men’s basketball program. An assistant under former coach Ken Wagner for eight seasons, Roberts also spent time as an assistant at American Fork High School and earned a master’s in sports management from American Public University.

A BYU graduate, Roberts waited patiently to get his chance while Wagner put in a Hall of Fame career of more than 500 wins with the Seasiders. He mentored former BYU-Hawaii stars Lucas Alves, Marcus Whippy and Jet Chang, and was on the bench during the 2008-09 season that included a 27-2 regular-season record with a trip to the NCAA Division II West Regional finals.

Under Wagner and Roberts, the Seasiders were 159-62 and earned five invitations to the NCAA West regional tournament.

And in March, it will all go dark.

“We try not to talk about it too much. We had to address it for a brief moment when our starting point guard decided to graduate early and leave,” Roberts said. “After a couple of our starters got injured, he decided to take his last year, graduate and go to graduate school to play a year.”

For now, the Seasiders are focused on going out with a bang: maybe a PacWest title, or a bid to the NCAA Tournament.

For some, that includes new experiences — like an unexpected leadership role.

“The season has been super interesting,” said Nelson, who averaged 8.0 points, 2.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 2015-16 but was named a team captain because he was one of the only regular rotation players who stayed for the final season.

“All of a sudden, I jumped from just another player to team captain and I’m trying to fill the role as best as I can. I’m just trying to make something happen, for myself or for open teammates.”

The school announced in 2014 that it would begin a three-year phase-out of its athletic department, shifting the focus from its 11 varsity sports with 24 national titles in men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s volleyball and rugby to “provide educational opportunities for the increasing number of students from around the world who can be served by the university,” the school said in a statement.

“The board, executive committee and university administration feel that the top priority is to serve more students, especially those from the Pacific and Asia,” the university stated. “Plans to increase enrollment to 3,200 students are already in progress with the construction of new on-campus housing facilities and the Heber J. Grant Building. Additional construction projects are in planning stages with completion expected in the next three years.”

A school staff member told KSL at the time that BYU-Hawaii was doing everything to provide for the “best experience for its students.”

Former BYU-Hawaii soccer coach Mark Davis was in the athletic department when the school announced the decision. He was stunned, and he looked at Wagner and men's basketball assistant coach David Evans (now at Lone Peak High School) “as if they had seen a ghost.”

“I feel like we didn’t have a voice once they decided to cut the athletic department,” said Davis, who now coaches at Salt Lake Community College. “It was very poorly done. There was no collaboration (with coaches or student-athletes). There was never a reason given.

“I felt as if it was handled very poorly. We all felt helpless when they announced it.”

At the time of the announcement, it was anticipated that the school would honor each individual scholarship for the remainder of the student-athlete’s academic duration. That proved not to be the case.

But life had to continue for the Seasiders.

“The soccer players I had recruited to play for me in 2016 are no longer going to be on any athletic aid or scholarship,” Davis said. “As coaches, we still had to sell our program to these student-athletes that we could compete to win a PacWest championship, even though our program was ending.”

Roberts confirmed that once the season ends for the Seasiders, each basketball player will be released from their scholarship — allowing many to transfer freely, but also placing the burden of educational financing on the individual student.

“They’ll go straight to school,” Roberts said. “There will probably be 4-5 who finish their degrees, and then a few more will get scholarships (at other schools) and move on. We’re trying to develop them for our season, but also so that other coaches can look at them.

“We’ve had a good tradition of good players and other coaches talking about them.”

Not everyone stayed for the Seasiders’ final season. Former post Solomone Wolfgramm transferred to BYU, where he is currently a defensive lineman on the Cougars’ football team. Leading scorer Justin Yamzon, a former star in Las Vegas who led Nevada in scoring for consecutive seasons in high school, took his final year of eligibility as a graduate transfer.

Players like McCleary and Nelson didn’t have that luxury.

“We know this is it, and we might as well see what we can do,” McCleary said. “If we can end with a bang, we can make a name for ourselves and prove ourselves for other teams.”

Many of the players who stayed had no prior basketball experience; former Davis High tennis player Cooper Brown is the biggest post at 6-foot-10 since joining the team following a mission in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

But playing in the midst of off-the-court adversity has brought them together.

“Our starting core of 5-7 guys do a good job of communicating and executing our offense,” Roberts said. “It’s when we get deeper into the bench that we have a lot of new guys with no high school or college experience; they are just trying to pick up and learn.

“A lot of these guys were just going to be redshirt or practice players. But due to redshirts, injuries and other circumstances, they’ve got to play.”

The historic final season of BYU-Hawaii basketball gives the Seasiders a chip on their shoulders for each game, even as they opened the season with back-to-back exhibition losses at Division I schools Hawaii and BYU.

“Everyone is excited because we know this is it,” Nelson said. “If we don’t play good, we won’t keep playing basketball. A lot of guys want to keep playing after BYU-Hawaii and I know coach Gabe wants to continue coaching.

“Honestly, we owe it to ourselves and to all the other Seasiders from the past to play good.”

***

BYU-Hawaii hasn’t been a bad experience for the final roster, contrary to what many on the outside might believe.

In fact, it’s made a habit of collecting former Utah prep standouts and giving them a chance to play when they can’t find a home in NCAA Division I. But this season, the Utah ties are scarce. Besides McCleary, only former Box Elder scoring standout Shad Watson played high school basketball on the Wasatch Front.

“D was going to be a solid backup for us, and then with our point guard leaving, I had to make a decision that put him as one of the smarter guys on the team to count on,” said Roberts, whose team opens the regular season Monday night against Alaska Fairbanks. “He can get our offense going. Sometimes I just have to remind him it’s OK to shoot it once we’ve gone through a few options. But he’s smart enough, good enough, and he does a good job for us.”

Recruiting Utah preps was a staple of former coach Wagner, a one-time Lehi High and Dixie State coach who spent 20 years with the Seasiders.

“This is a big recruiting base for him, and has been for years,” said BYU coach Dave Rose of Wagner, who is now with the Taiwan national team. “You can imagine how difficult it is to fill that last year’s team for recruiting players and having them come.

“It’s hard to have an opinion on other people’s programs, but for me knowing how many kids want to play collegiate basketball, it’s always sad when any collegiate program goes away. In that situation, I’m disappointed for the players that won’t get the opportunity.”

When the Seasiders gathered for their regular pregame devotional before playing at the Marriott Center in Provo, dozens of alumni who live in Utah welcomed them with open arms. They relayed their disappointment in witnessing the program’s collapse.

“We have a lot of ex-players who love BYU-Hawaii,” Nelson said. “We don’t want to go out with a terrible season. We want to go out and make a statement this year.”

The alums also expressed their thanks to what the program has done for them, and dismay at what is happening in the athletic department.

“A lot of people don’t understand why, and I don’t understand why, either,” Nelson said. “I believe sports brings people together.

“I’m having the time of my life at BYU-Hawaii, and we have kids from all over on our team: Brazil, New Zealand, Korea. It’s one of the most diverse teams around. But to phase out sports is just taking away opportunities for all the athletes who want to keep playing.”

It’s also removing another opportunity for LDS athletes who don’t want to play sports on Sunday, but want the opportunity to play in college — even if not at the Division I level, Davis said.

“There are some Division I players that have made the decision not to play on Sunday. Now they have one less option,” Davis said. “I can’t tell you how many times we could land a Division I-type player from Utah, male or female, because they didn’t want to participate in athletics on Sunday.

“That really hurts a good demographic that has been taught their entire lives not to participate in sports on Sunday. They are in that much more of a predicament.”

One such prep standout was McCleary, who doesn’t have another option as yet. He grew up in Riverton, and always wanted to attend an LDS Church-sponsored school.

Basketball was an added bonus, and still is — for one final season.

“When I was younger, I always wanted to play for a BYU program — and that meant either Provo or Hawaii,” McCleary said. “Now that they are cutting it, it cuts out a bunch of options. BYU-Hawaii has so many athletes and all these athletes won’t be able to play at a BYU school now.”

***

Related Story

BYU-Hawaii to phase out athletics over 3 years

BYU-Hawaii will phase out its athletics program over the course of the next three years, according to a source involved in a meeting Monday between administrators and coaches.

Roberts walked out of the locker room after last Wednesday’s loss to BYU and found a throng of former players, coaches and employees greeting his team in the Marriott Center. The Seasiders hopped on a flight at 6 a.m. the next morning, and won’t return to Utah until playing at conference foe Dixie State on Feb. 2.

That will almost assuredly be the last time Roberts comes to Utah as a BYU-Hawaii employee. His future in the game, like his players, is also up in the air.

Naturally, it isn’t a topic anyone enjoys bringing up, no matter the media attention it brings the small university of about 2,500 students. But Roberts knows what is coming, and won’t shy away from reporters, fans, alums and others who ask questions about the future.

“We had to talk about it for a while,” Roberts said. “But I told them we want them to be here, and if they are going to be here, we need to focus. At the end of the year, we will help them go somewhere else. We have guys who will go on and get scholarships to other schools.”

Now, it’s time to lace up the sneakers and play ball.

“We just want to prove ourselves this year,” McCleary said. “All the returners are hurt, and it’s the last season for sports at BYU-Hawaii. We want to prove ourselves and go out with a bang — just see what we can do.”

Related topics