MANHATTAN, Kansas — After Kansas State had cut No. 10 BYU’s lead to six points early in the second half Saturday afternoon, Cougars coach Kevin Young inserted 6-foot-10 newcomer Abdullah Ahmed into the game and pulled out rim protector supreme Keba Keita.
The timing seemed ripe for the Wildcats to continue their comeback, but Ahmed was able to hold his own inside, and even contributed a couple of buckets to push BYU’s lead out to nine points on two different occasions.
Kansas State got no closer than seven points the rest of the way and BYU rolled to an 83-73 victory in the Big 12 opener in front of 11,010 at Bramlage Coliseum. Ahmed, whose nickname is “Biddo,” finished with four points, two assists and three blocks in only his second game in a BYU uniform.
“Biddo helped us get that win,” said senior forward Richie Saunders. “It’s good to have him here.”
Of course, not everybody is happy to see Ahmed playing in the college ranks, after the native of Cairo, Egypt, spent the last two seasons playing for the Westchester Knicks in the NBA’s G League. Ahmed, who is classified as a sophomore in eligibility, joined the Cougars a few months ago, gained his eligibility just before the holiday break, and scored one point in his debut, BYU’s 109-81 win over Eastern Washington on Dec. 22.
Ahmed went undrafted in the 2025 NBA draft, while a player that Baylor recently signed to the chagrin of many and added to its roster — 21-year-old James Nnaji, certainly was. The 7-footer was booed every time he touched the ball in Baylor’s 69-63 loss at TCU on Saturday, while finishing with five points and four rebounds in 16 minutes off the bench.
Prominent college basketball coaches such as UConn’s Dan Hurley, John Calipari of Arkansas and Tom Izzo of Michigan State have publicly complained recently about NCAA rules that allow the G League players and NBA-drafted players to join college programs — Baylor’s addition of Nnaji has drawn far more criticism than BYU’s addition of Ahmed — as midseason roster acquisitions.
Neither Nnaji nor Ahmed have appeared in NBA games.
For his part, Young defended the practice at Big 12 basketball media days in Kansas City in October when rumors surfaced that BYU was recruiting Ahmed, and he doubled down on that belief last Thursday when previewing the BYU-Kansas State game.
“I’ve seen a lot of the discussion points there. The first thing I would say is just the amount of respect I have for all the legends of the game as it relates to college coaching,” Young said. “A lot of guys I grew up watching and being fans of (have criticized the rules) and their broad experience and the longevity that they’ve had (is impressive). I don’t blame them for raising an eyebrow to the way things are going, because it’s so different.”
But “different” doesn’t necessarily mean it is a bad thing, Young said, while expressing “respect” for coaches who have been able to coach at the collegiate level for as long as Calipari and Izzo have.
“In terms of how I see what is happening, I think the big thing is understanding what the rules are, and understanding that you have to play within those rules, and being able to put together a team that you think is going to help you win,” Young said. “The opinion I have and the thing that I’ve heard a lot is this idea of what it (negatively) does to the kids and what it does to the high school players.”
The veteran coaches are saying that allowing pros — from the G League or overseas — to play college basketball is lessening opportunities for high school players. Young coached in the NBA’s developmental leagues (D League and G League) from 2007-16 and then was an NBA assistant with the Philadelphia 76ers from 2016-20 and Phoenix Suns from 2020-24 before landing the BYU job in 2024.
Young said making younger players have to “pay their dues” is not always a bad thing.
“I do understand it impacts some high school players and young guys. But at the same time, I think it could really help if we reimagine what it looks like for a young player,” he said. “I was in the G League for nine years and sometimes you get a kid from a power conference team and they aren’t ready to help us win and they have a long road ahead of them. … Some of those guys flamed out and their lives look a lot different than if they had stayed in school and gotten more ready to play in the NBA.”
Young acknowledged that it is “never ideal” to bring in a player in the middle of the college season, as Baylor and BYU have done. He said it is “no different” than bringing in a guy before the NBA trade deadline when teams are preparing to make a playoff run, “which is essentially how I viewed us bringing in Biddo.”
Young said the BYU coaching staff did its due diligence and properly vetted Ahmed to ensure he would be the right fit and not disrupt a team that has lost just once, by two points to No. 3 UConn in Boston.
“We felt in our particular case that it was a calculated risk that we were willing to take. He’s a great young man. He understands how to play and he’s unselfish, and he fits with what we’re doing,” Young said. “So I think it’s situational. You throw the wrong guy (on the team) and the whole thing is going to blow up. So you got to be super careful. In our own case, so far, it’s gone good.”
BYU returns to the Marriott Center on Wednesday to host Arizona State (0-1, 9-5) at 7 p.m. The Sun Devils fell 95-89 to Colorado on Saturday in Tempe.
