There seems to be no shortage of trouble for the BYU Cougars. What started as a dream 3–0 opening to the season has quickly turned into a wave of setbacks. Their showdown with No. 3 UConn was already going to be a massive challenge without forward Kennard Davis Jr., but now the Cougars have been hit with another blow. They’ll now be without their big man, Keba Keita, too.

With 8:52 left in the first half, while battling UConn’s Jaylin Stewart for a loose ball, Keba Keita took a hard hit to the head. He stayed down for several moments before Xavion Staton and trainer Rob Ramos helped him off the floor and down the tunnel. As he got up, he looked visibly unsteady.

A major concern for BYU as they head into halftime trailing 32–43.

The tough night for the BYU Cougars got a little heavier when reporter Jeff Borzello confirmed that the forward who logged just eight minutes tonight is officially ruled out for the rest of the game. He chipped in 2 rebounds and a steal before exiting, but the update felt like a punch to the gut for a team already carrying plenty on its plate.

BYU fans are still trying to process the news of Kennard Davis Jr.’s recent DUI arrest, and now another setback hits them in real time. It’s one of those stretches where everything seems to pile up at once, and all you can hope is that this group finds a way to stay steady and keep fighting.

No one knows when Kieta will be fit to come back, and that uncertainty alone hurts. His absence is going to be a major blow for the Cougars because of everything he brings to the table.

What BYU Loses in Keba Keita’s Absence

It was a huge coup for BYU when Keita became one of the first transfer athletes to commit under new head coach Kevin Young last season. He had Texas and several other Power Five programs chasing him, but he chose Provo for one reason–continuity. His bond with assistant coach Chris Burgess, who had worked closely with him for the past two years at Utah, tipped the scales. In the end, Keita wanted to keep growing under someone who understood his game and believed in his development, and that made BYU the perfect landing spot.

In his junior year, he finally settled into a full-time starting role and gave BYU exactly what Coach Young would’ve wanted — 7.4 points, 7.9 boards, and 1.2 blocks. He dominated the glass for the Cougars.  But his senior season came with a whole different level of hype. Aj Dybantsa’s arrival meant that expectations around BYU shot through the roof. The Cougars entered this season as a top-10 program for the first time ever.

But none of that happens without Keba Keita, and we saw that right away in the season opener against three-time champion Villanova. He stuffed the stat sheet with eight points, seven rebounds, three blocks, and a steal, but even that doesn’t tell the whole story. Fans saw those bone-rattling screens, the athletic tip-outs, the scrambles on the floor, and every little dirty-job play he had to pull off for the win.

Keita put on a show that night. He started things off by catching an alley-oop from Dybantsa for a dunk, then threw down a one-handed put-back, and later swatted away a Villanova shot like it was nothing. “He’s a presence and a force and an anchor,” coach Young said about his senior after the game.

He’s been doing a bit of everything this season, averaging 6.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.3 blocks, and 1.7 steals. Those numbers tell you how important he is on both ends of the floor. And that’s exactly why BYU is really going to miss him in the games ahead.