Kevin Younger rounds out BYU workers with considered one of basketball’s prime defenders

PROVO — The fifth assistant beneath new BYU males’s basketball coach Kevin Younger has been revealed, and it is a rising school basketball assistant — and one of many prime defensive gamers within the sport.

The Cougars added former Windfall level guard John Linehan to spherical out the teaching workers, the college introduced Wednesday.

“John involves BYU after working for 2 coaches I’ve nice respect for in Billy Lange and Tom Crean,” Younger mentioned. “He’s an distinctive participant improvement coach, who has labored with among the sport’s nice gamers. John will assist our guys get higher every single day together with his vitality and keenness for improvement. John is among the finest defensive gamers in NCAA historical past and can convey that edge to our program.”

Linehan, 46, involves BYU after most just lately spending the previous two seasons as an assistant at Saint Joseph’s beneath Billy Lang. The Chester, Pennsylvania, native has spent his total teaching profession on the east coast, beginning as an operations assistant at Drexel in 2015 earlier than shifting to Brown, Hartford and Georgia previous to his cease in Philadelphia in 2022.

In St. Joseph’s, Linehan helped information a staff to a 21-14 report and an NIT bid whereas additionally mentoring Xzayvier Brown, a finalist for the Kyle Macy Nationwide Freshman of the 12 months award who averaged 12.7 factors per sport to go together with 62 steals.

As a participant, Linehan was one of many prime defensive gamers in each school {and professional} basketball, a two-time Massive East defensive participant of the 12 months at Windfall who grew to become the all-time NCAA Division I chief in steals. He grew to become the consensus nationwide defensive participant of the 12 months in 2002 by the NABC, ESPN and Faculty Insider, and went on to win the Bob Cousy Award as the highest senior in New England who stands under six ft.

His steals report of 385 stood till Dec. 5, 2021, when Richmond’s Jacob Gilyard broke the then-20-year-old mark together with his 386th profession steal within the Spiders’ win over Northern Iowa.

The 5-foot-9 guard started his skilled profession with the Greenville Groove within the Nationwide Basketball Improvement League in 2002. He additionally performed briefly with the Harlem Globetrotters in 2004.

After profitable a Continental Basketball Affiliation championship with the Dakota Wizards, Linehan moved to Europe with Paris Basket Racing of France’s LNB Professional A and went on to earn French league finest defender honors 4 occasions with three completely different groups, in addition to French league finals MVP in 2011.

In 2011, whereas enjoying in Estonia with Kalev, he was named All-KMBL defensive participant of the 12 months.

Linehan joins 4 different coaches on Younger inaugural teaching workers, together with former Stanford assistant Brandon Dunson, former Utah assistant Chris Burgess, former Austin Spurs head coach Will Voigt, and former Extra time Elite and European coach Tim Fanning, who additionally has ties to Younger’s time within the NBA G League.