BUDAPEST, Hungary — Former BYU basketball standout Rudi Williams spent this past pro season 5,624 miles away from Provo, playing for a club in the small town of Kormend in western Hungary near the border with Austria.
But the 6-foot-2 guard — one of the top scorers in the 14-team league in Hungary — still keeps in touch with some of his former coaches and players from his season with the Cougars. And he said he sacrificed sleep to watch live BYU’s run in the NCAA Tournament against VCU, Wisconsin and Alabama.
“Since I left Provo there is not too many games that I missed,” said Williams, a key starter for the Cougars during the 2022-23 season. “I watched a lot of games this year. I am super impressed with the team and the development of all of the guys. I was impressed with the new coach, Kevin Young. I think they will be known as a national power” going forward.
Williams, from Ontario, has not met Young — but that may change soon. Young was named the BYU coach in April 2024.
“I plan on it this summer. I hope to get down to Provo,” Williams, 26, said in a phone interview. “I would say his skill in adapting (was impressive). Making the jump from the NBA to your first job as a college coach, he did not miss a beat. He adapted to the college game and helped make Richie Saunders one of the best players in the Big 12.”
Williams keeps in touch with several current and former members of the BYU staff, including graduate assistant Jordan Woodson and Parker Rhee, a men’s basketball strength and conditioning coach. “I have a great relationship with him,” Williams said of Rhee, who he connects with four or five times a week.
Bountiful High grad Zachary Seljaas, winding down his third pro season in Germany, is also excited about the future of the BYU program.
“I met Young when he first got the job in Provo,” Seljaas said in a phone interview last week. “Having this coach is perfect for BYU. I think it is a really good step for BYU to become more of a powerhouse. I think it is cool to see what they are putting into the program.”
Williams, who played in Austria as a rookie pro in 2023-24, and Seljaas are two of several former Cougars who have played overseas this season.
Other former Cougars playing overseas
The list includes several BYU/Utah high school products, including Provo High and NBA veteran Brandon Davies (Serbia); American Fork’s Spencer Johnson (England); and Bingham High’s Yoeli Childs, who has played the past two seasons in Japan after an earlier stop in Germany.
Other ex-BYU standouts, per eurobasket.com, to play for pay during the 2024-25 campaign: Elijah Bryant, another NBA alum who is in Turkey; Alex Barcello, who played this season in Germany and Spain after earlier gigs in Greece, Belgium and Spain; Matt Haarms, a native of the Netherlands who began his pro career in Germany and Spain and was also in Japan this season; and Brandon Averette, who played this season in Serbia, Germany and Luxembourg after earlier stops in Cyprus and France. Charles Abouo, a four-year BYU performer, played in France from 2016 to last year, after earlier contracts in Spain, Egypt and Qatar.
Davies, who ended his college career in 2013, played this season for famed Partizan in the Serbian capital of Belgrade this season. After playing in the NBA with Philadelphia and Brooklyn, Davies also made pro stops in Spain, France, Italy and Lithuania; Serbia and Lithuania are two European countries where hoops is a bigger deal than soccer. He was averaging about eight points per game in early May.
A 6-foot-8 inside player who last played for BYU in 2020, Seljaas has played the past three seasons in Germany after earlier stops in Slovakia and the eastern European country of Georgia. He averaged nearly 14 points per contest in his first 24 outings this season for Wuerzburg, a city of about 128,000 in south-central Germany. Despite the time difference, he watched two of the BYU games in the NCAA Tournament.
“We really love Germany,” said Seljaas, who lives there with his wife and three boys. “My kids go to school here. In the summertime, we go back to Bountiful, where I am from. We spend our summers there.”
Johnson, an all-state high school player per the Deseret News, began his pro career this season with Leicester, a city of about 370,000 in the East Midlands, in the Super League Basketball in the United Kingdom. He was averaging 9.3 points and 3.9 assists per contest in late April.
Bingham High’s Childs, a product of the Salt Lake City Stars, averaged 22.2 points per contest for the Cougars in his last season in 2019-20. He has played in the NBA Summer League with the Lakers before heading to Germany in 2021. He later played in the NBA G League with Salt Lake City — and is winding up his second season with the Saga Ballooners in Japan.
Childs had 25 points in a game in late April and was averaging about 18 points and 10 boards per contest in early May.
Williams averaged around 21 points per contest this season in Hungary. His team was swept 3-0 in the quarterfinals of the playoffs by Szolnok, with the clinching win coming on April 25.
While playing in Austria, his team played road games in Poland, Czechia, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Italy, and Croatia. This season he made several trips to Budapest, the Hungarian capital that is about 150 miles east of Kormend.
“This season was really fun; I enjoyed my time in Hungary,” he said. “Basically, it was nothing short of amazing. I had success on the court. My goal would be to play in the Euro League, which is the second-best competition in the world outside of the NBA. I think that is pretty achievable; I am making progress toward that.”
And keeping an eye on his former BYU program as well.
Cougar coaches global connections
The current coaching staff of the Cougars also have extensive overseas experience.
Assistant coach Chris Burgess played 11 seasons professionally, with stops in Turkey, Australia, the Philippines, South Korea, Egypt, Ukraine, Puerto Rico, Poland and the United Arab Emirates.
“I have known him since I was 11,” said Seljaas. “He actually is the one that inspired me to play overseas basketball. He is my main connection to the current staff.”
John Linehan, another assistant, was named three times as the best defender in the French League — in 2006, 2010 and 2011. He was the French League Finals MVP in 2011 and was the all-KML defensive player of the year in 2009 while playing in Estonia. Linehan played college ball at Providence and held the NCAA career records for steals before it was broken by Jacob Gilyard, who played for Richmond during his college days and is with a team in Germany this spring after NBA stints with Memphis and Brooklyn.
BYU assistant Tim Fanning won four straight Israeli League titles with Maccabi Tel Aviv as an assistant coach, including the last two with former Cougar Elijah Bryant.
Editor’s note: Virginia native David Driver is the author of “Hoop Dreams in Europe: American Basketball Players Building Careers Overseas.” He lived in Hungary for three years, now lives in Poland and has interviewed American basketball players in more than 15 countries. Driver is the former sports editor of papers in Baltimore and Harrisonburg and Arlington in Virginia and can be reached at daytondavid.com.