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PROVO — BYU basketball will be without its highest scoring transfer addition for the remainder of the 2023-24 season and the remainder of Big 12 play.
The former UC Irvine top scorer has scheduled a "complicated" season-ending surgery on a lingering injury to his foot, head coach Mark Pope told BYUtv after Tuesday night's 87-72 win over No. 24 Iowa State.
That game also saw the 20th-ranked Cougars (14-3, 2-2 Big 12) play without leading 3-point shooter Trevin Knell (foot) and top rebounder Fousseyni Traore (hamstring) — and still beat a team ranked No. 24 in the Associated Press Top 25 and top-10 in both the NET ratings and KenPom by 15 points.
"We're losing our best 3-point shooter, we're losing Dawson, we lose Fouss who has been a mainstay — and the guys still came out with a massive win against a team that is playing elite-level basketball," Pope said. "Depth is important if you want to be a great team."
Baker wraps up what would have been his junior season averaging 5.0 points in just over eight minutes per game across four games, including a season-high 10-point outburst against Bellarmine back on Dec. 22.
But injuries will keep the transfer under wraps for the remainder of the season, after transferring to BYU following a 1,000-point career at UC Irvine that included averaging 15.3 points per game in 2022-23 for the Anteaters.
By shutting down the season and having surgery, Baker can also apply for a medical redshirt to grant him two remaining seasons of eligibility. That would bring him back to the 2024-25 roster that will likely lose seniors Spencer Johnson and Noah Waterman (who can apply for a medical redshirt on a previous season before transferring to BYU), and potentially Jaxson Robinson, who is listed as a senior with two years of eligibility but is gauging NBA interest after exploding for a team-high 14.3 points (primarily off the bench) through the first 18 games of the season.
The Cougars are also adding Collin Chandler, the highest-rated signee in BYU basketball history who is currently serving a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Isaac Davis, a 6-foot-8, 210-pound forward from Idaho Falls who averaged 17.7 points and 8.8 rebounds per game last year at Hillcrest High.
None of the trio of Baker, Knell and Traore played Tuesday night, limiting Pope's rotation to as few as seven players before the final minutes against the Cyclones. But a career night from Spencer Johnson, and double-digit scoring from Robinson Noah Waterman and Dallin Hall helped the Cougars to their first home win in Big 12 play in program history.
Traore suffered a setback to a previously injured hamstring during the Cougars' 63-58 win Saturday afternoon over UCF. Knell, too, injured his foot with about 5-6 minutes remaining in the game when he collided with a player and came up limping, Pope said.
"He came back, talked to Rob (Ramos, head athletic training for BYU men's basketball), and said, 'I think I can keep going,'" Pope said Tuesday of the 47% 3-point shooter averaging 13.1 points and 4.1 rebounds per game. "Then after the game, he was not feeling great. We had imaging done, and it came back as good as it could possibly be. We were really nervous. But we're hoping that he'll make a quick recovery."
Coaches are also cautiously optimistic that Traore's setback won't keep him out for an extended period of time after missing the month of December while recovering from a hamstring injury.
Pope himself even asked Knell live on the BYUtv feed on ESPN+ if he can get back sooner rather than later.
"On behalf of all of Cougar Nation, will you please hurry back?" Pope implored of the former Woods Cross star.
"I will," Knell responded, with a chuckle.
BYU travels to No. 25 Texas Tech on Saturday, part of a three-game stretch of consecutive top-25 opponents for the first time since the 1981 NCAA Tournament.
