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PROVO — BYU men's basketball readied for its once-every-four-years overseas trip to Croatia next week a man down, but not due to injury.
The Cougars' roster a week before departing for the homeland of legendary BYU figure Krešimir Ćosić included the returning talent of Fousseyni Traore, Spencer Johnson, Dallin Hall and Trevin Knell, who sat out last season with a shoulder injury. It also featured newcomers Dawson Baker from UC Irvine and Aly Khalifa from Charlotte.
But gone was former Florida and Samford guard Ques Glover, who re-entered the transfer portal just a few months after transferring to BYU for his fifth season of eligibility.
"Just disappointed that it happened," said wing Jaxson Robinson, the former Arkansas transfer who averaged 8.5 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game last year for the Cougars. "But good luck to Ques; everybody's going to miss him. That was a good friend of mine since he stepped on campus. It's hard to see him leave, but it is what it is."
Glover's departure leaves BYU down two scholarship players late in the preseason cycle. Plenty of coaches have gone into a season down one scholarship, an attempt to be ready for the 24/7 recruiting cycle that could see a player opt for a change at any moment.
But down two, by early August? That's different, head coach Mark Pope admits.
"I was super sad about it," Pope said. "He's a beautiful young man, a perfect fit for BYU, and an enormously talented player with a ton of miles. We're really sad to lose him."
Pope confirmed Glover's departure was "all NIL" related.
The 6-foot, 180-pound playmaker averaged 14.7 points, 2.5 rebounds and 2.7 assists a year ago for the Bulldogs — down from a 19-point scoring average as a junior — and was entering his fifth season of college basketball after spending two years each at Florida and Samford.
There's little doubt that Glover would've helped the Cougars, Pope said, but the team won't necessarily look to replace his scholarship unless the right piece comes along.
"I like my group," Pope said. "It's really late, and we're still paying attention to everything that's going on. We're still having a lot of conversations. It's going to have to be somebody with a really special upside, a 2-3 year upside, or maybe a one-year guy that will come in and give us some physicality on the front line, which we're still lacking, especially while we're slowly on-ramping Aly.
"We lost a huge piece in Ques, so we may need some more ball-handling security; those are probably the two spaces that we need the most. But it's got to be the right fit. Our whole season is going to rely on how close we fit together, and so we can't just go grab anybody; that doesn't work here at BYU, and that's not what we're about."
Most of the Cougars' offseason additions fit a significant need, both culturally and on the court.
A year after the graduation of Rudi Williams and Gideon George, and with Braeden Moore (Oral Roberts) and Tanner Toolson (Utah Valley) jumping to the transfer portal, Pope's staff brought in Khalifa — the 7-foot Egyptian international who played two years at Charlotte — and UC Irvine wing Dawson Baker, a California native who served a two-year church mission in Guam.
Khalifa isn't a member of the university's sponsoring religious institution, but the big man would allow rising junior big Traore to move to a more-permanent power forward role after averaging 11.7 points and 6.7 rebounds a year ago with the 49ers.
That should help the Cougars as they move into their first season in the Big 12, what Pope calls the best college basketball conference in the country. It isn't getting any easier, either, with Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah joining a group that currently includes Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor and Houston, among others.
But BYU's inaugural Power Five season likely won't be defined solely by individual performances, he added.
"Our season is going to be defined by how close we are. This group, when you face a situation like we've already faced this summer, the capital we put in the bank in terms of us being together is super important," Pope said. "We can't wait to get into this season and everything it brings."
