UTAH UTES BIG MAN HITS TRANSFER PORTAL

The hits keep coming for the University of Utah’s basketball program.

Not even a full 24 hours after Assistant coach Chris Burgess jumped back to BYU, Sophomore Keba Keita has entered the transfer portal.

Keita appeared in 35 games this last season for the Runnin Utes, starting 13 of them.

His 8.3 Points per night were the sixth best mark on the team and his 5.4 rebounds were the 3^rd highest for the U.

If losing a top assistant/recruiter to a rival like BYU stings, it won’t help Ute fans to know that the chances of a rotation player like Keita following in Burgess’s footsteps are quite high.

Keita and Burgess worked closely together the last two years as Burgess was his position coach.

The soon to be Junior attended Wasatch Academy and may look to stay in the beehive state.

BYU conveniently needs a big man.

At 6-8, Keita isn’t your “traditional” center, although that was his primary position in Salt Lake City.

New BYU head coach, Kevin Young, fresh out of the NBA may want more size at the 5, yet Keita seems like too good of a pickup for the Cougars to look past if they decide to pursue.

Don’t let the 6-8 center trope fool you as Keita is a rim protector through and through:

There is rarely a shot he fails to contest, and may sometimes contest too much:

If the Cougars pursue and land Keba Keita to join the “new and improved Cougars” fans better be prepare to hear the war of words between Ute and Cougar fans as they could see the work of Burgess returning in such a quick timeframe.

If it wasn’t already juicy enough between the Utes football pedigree and the Cougars stacking assets on the hardwood, these two teams are about to play in the same conference for the first time since 2010.

Run from it, dread it, it arrives all the same as the Utes and Cougars are forever to be tied together, evident once again by Keba Keita stepping into the transfer portal.