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BYU men's basketball assistant coach Chris Burgess, center, addresses the team during summer workouts at the Marriott Center Annex on Monday, Aug. 4, 2025.

Nate Edwards, BYU Photo

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BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa plays defense during summer workouts at the Marriott Center Annex on Monday, Aug. 4, 2025.

Nate Edwards, BYU Photo

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During BYU’s three-game run in the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, the Cougars allowed 91 points per game and a total of 52 3-pointers to VCU, Wisconsin and Alabama, including an NCAA Tournament record 25 triples to the Crimson Tide in the Sweet 16.

Clearly, if BYU wants to advance beyond the third round for the first time since 1981, its defense has to improve.

At the end of summer workouts last week, Cougar coach Kevin Young talked to his players about the focus of their efforts. Three of them were on the defensive side: One-on-one defense, defensive transition and defensive mental toughness.

BYU spent a lot of time scrimmaging this summer as well, working on getting to the rim, playing off two feet and finding open teammates.

But it was defense that got the bulk of the attention.

“Let’s just be honest,” BYU assistant coach Chris Burgess said. “We relied a lot on offense last year. It was really good. Even in our loss to Alabama, we still scored almost 90 points. We felt like we had to build a guard if we’re going to take the next step. So this whole summer, the emphasis has been about the defensive end. We want to pressure the ball more. We want to be more aggressive.

“Last year on defense we did what we called a tight show. We just wanted to have our toes to the three, really pack the lane and just keep guys in front. Now we want to be a little bit more hands on and get more pressure.”

In building a roster for the 2025-26 season, the Cougars wanted to bring in players who could fill important defensive roles.

“We feel like we we got guys in here that can do that, right?” Burgess said. “We think AJ (Dybantsa) is a dynamic defender. We think Rob (Wright) has the ability to push the ball. Kennard Davis might be one of our best defenders. Nate Pickens is a really, really good defender. Dominique (Diomonde) is long and athletic. Khadim Mboup is long and athletic. He’s switchable one through five, one through four. Everyone talks about the offense and the but we think we’re going to be able to guard teams this year in ways that we just didn’t do last year.”

The new roster isn’t deficient on the offensive end by any means.

“With last year’s team, as good as they were, we felt like we didn’t have the ability to get into the paint,” Burgess said. “We felt like we had upgrade some of our ability to just be dynamic with the ball, to get to our spots and make plays. We feel like we really upgraded that in terms of that talent.

“We also felt like we had to put shooting around the court. We knew Richie (Saunders) was going to be a big-time shooter. We knew Dawson Baker was going to be a big time shooter. (Mahailo) Boscovich was going to be in his second year and hopefully he’ll take another step in his shooting ability. So we upgraded with Rob, and with AJ and Kennard.”

The NCAA allows men’s college basketball teams a maximum of eight hours per week during summer workouts, with weight training, conditioning and skill instruction for up to eight weeks.

“We have some competitive guys in the gym,” Burgess said. “We have guys that came in wanting to get better. They wanted to compete, so we organized a lot of our practice around trying to play live ball. The competitiveness of this group, they know the expectations, right? They know they came up short in the Sweet 16, and there’s still a sour taste with the returners.

“With what we saw this summer, it was just the competitive fire. I think we just kept scratching our heads about who’s going to eventually rise and continue to rise. They’ve been competing at a high level and it’s been awesome. We’ve probably done fewer drills because we wanted to get them to play, because it’s so fun to see that. It’s how you build chemistry and build a team by letting them play and figuring things out.”