The Cougars’ season opener in 2025-26 was against Villanova, with the five starters being freshman AJ Dybantsa, senior Keba Keita, Davis (a junior transfer), senior Richie Saunders and sophomore transfer Robert Wright III.

Keita and Saunders are out of eligibility, Dybantsa will most assuredly enter the NBA Draft (he has yet to declare officially) and Davis and Wright are in the transfer portal.

For those keeping count, that’s 76.3 points per game (of 83.9) and 4,914 minutes played moving on to other pursuits.

By comparison, BYU ended the 2024-25 season with these starters: Keita, Saunders, Mawot Mag, Egor Demin and Trevin Knell. Mag and Knell graduated and Demin was the No. 8 pick in the NBA Draft.

Davis was picked up from Southern Illinois, where he averaged 16.3 points and shot 37.6% from the 3-point line. He was expected to be a “3-and-D” player similar to Mag. While Davis averaged more points (8.5 to .9), rebounds (2.7 to 2.1), assists (1.3 to 0.7) and steals (1.1 to 0.7) he shot poorly from the 3-point line, finishing at 32.1% after spending most of the season under 30%. Mag hit 39.7% of his 3-pointers in 2024-25.

Defensively, Davis was touted as a similar lock-down defender but struggled to slow down the Big 12’s elite scorers. To be fair, the rest of the Cougars were also subpar defenders during Big 12 play and were 14th (out of 16 teams) in points allowed per game (82.9).

Davis was joined in the portal by guard Tyler Mrus on Thursday. Mrus was brought to Provo after shooting 38% from the 3-point line at the University of Idaho in 2024-25. With BYU, Mrus played in 27 games but shot just 29.8% from beyond the arc (14 of 47) and only played three minutes in the post-season (against Kansas State in the Big 12 Tournament).

So BYU’s portal count as of Thursday afternoon was at five: Davis, Mrus, Robert Wright III, Dominque Diamonde and Xavion Staton.

Here’s another interesting tidbit for your memory banks: As of Thursday afternoon, the BYU roster consists of only three players — Brody Kozlowski, Dawson Baker and Khadim Mboup — who have spent more than one season in Provo.

So far, no guarantees that any of those players will return.

The transfer portal will remain open until April 21 and as of yet no one on the current roster has released any “run it back” messages on social media, so be prepared for more changes.

Kevin Young and his coaching staff, at this point, are going to build around Top 5 recruit Bruce Branch III, top junior college recruit KJ Perry and 6-8 Timpview recruit Dean Rueckert. With five players already in the portal and five others either out of eligibility or moving on to the NBA, coaches will definitely be mining the portal to fill those ten roster spots.

Former BYU commit Collin Chandler — who followed Mark Pope to Kentucky — entered his name into the transfer portal on Wednesday evening with a “Do Not Contact” tag. Chandler averaged 9.7 points and shot 43.5% from three this season with the Wildcats. Most reports have Chandler returning to Utah (he played high school ball at Farmington) to suit up for the Cougars.