BYU Basketball Hires Director of Analytics, Executive Assistant

Talmage Morgan | Jul 29, 2024

BYU head coach Kevin Young / BYU Photo

Kevin Young announced new hires on Friday. One of those is Akash Sebastian, who will be Director of Analytics and Strategy. Sebastian spent time with the Sacramento Kings and Utah Jazz early on in his career before spending the last two years as a coaching analyst with the Phoenix Suns.

Young had nothing but high praise for Sebastian: “I’m very excited to have Akash with us here at BYU,” Young said. “We’ve worked closely together over the past two years in the NBA. He was instrumental in a lot of the success we had with the Phoenix Suns, working hard behind the scenes to move the needle. He knows how to challenge my thinking as we strive for efficiency, both on the team level and the player level. His ability to build things out from a coding and programming standpoint will also be instrumental as we build our analytics infrastructure.”

Samantha Young comes from inside the BYU basketball program, having spent time as a language specialist. Coach Kevin Young emphasized her ability to fill multiple roles: “Samantha is a very welcome addition to our program,” Young said. “She’s a perfect fit for this role with her previous experience helping our players on the academic side. Samantha is a tireless worker and extremely organized. As she transitions into this new role, she will wear many hats as she helps keep all of us on task.”

Along with Doug Stewart in the newly created Chief of Staff role, these recent hires bring BYU basketball a step closer to its goal of becoming a top-tier program. In the constantly changing college environment where coaches have to adapt to things like the transfer portal, NIL deals, and revenue sharing, these hires will take the load off of Coach Young and allow him to be in the trenches with his players.