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Utah State coach Tim Duryea accuses AAU coach of ‘shopping’ Mountain West Freshman of the Year Koby McEwen

Utah State v Duke

DURHAM, NC - NOVEMBER 29: Head coach Tim Duryea of the Utah State Aggies directs his team during their game against the Duke Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor Stadium on November 29, 2015 in Durham, North Carolina. Duke won 85-52. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

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Utah State head coach Tim Duryea publicly accused an AAU coach of “shopping” star freshman guard Koby McEwen this week in a report from the Deseret News.

The 6-foot-4 McEwen is the reigning Mountain West Freshman of the Year after he averaged 14.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game last season. With the Deseret News running a multi-part feature on the current state of college basketball transfers among Utah programs, Duryea spoke candidly with reporter Jeff Hunter on the subject.

Duryea had some very interesting accusations about an AAU coach who was allegedly trying to work behind the scenes to find McEwen a new school without the player or family’s knowledge or approval.

Per Hunter’s report:

Needless to say, Duryea was similarly displeased when he found out early this spring that someone was “shopping” current Aggie guard Koby McEwen to other basketball programs. According to Duryea, an individual with AAU ties in Canada was trying to find another place for McEwen, a native of Toronto who was named the Mountain West Freshman of the Year after averaging 14.9 points per game in 2016-17.

“That was a situation where a player was being shopped and didn’t even know he was being shopped,” Duryea says. “He was shopping Koby’s name out there without checking with the family or the kid. He was contacting other programs, telling them that here’s a kid that’s looking to transfer and that wasn’t even the case.”


Obviously, these are some pretty serious allegations coming from Duryea -- especially with on-the-record quotes indirectly calling someone out for this. But Duryea also has a right to feel a bit paranoid after promising forward David Collette transferred out of the program two days before the 2015-16 season and eventually ended up at Utah.

Although I (and my NBC colleague Rob Dauster) vehemently disagreed with Utah State’s decision to not release Collette from his scholarship (the school forced Collette to leave Utah State and he was unable to get athletic aid until after the fall 2016 semester while at Utah), you can understand where Duryea’s paranoia is coming from with his protective statements about his promising freshman guard.

Duryea also has a lot of takes on transfers in the rest of Hunter’s story on Utah State. I highly recommend checking out the other parts of the Deseret News transfer series as well.