PROVO — The last player to the BYU men’s basketball roster made perhaps the loudest first impression.
The Cougars had already signed the top recruit in the country in AJ Dybantsa, paired him with a top Big 12 point guard in Rob Wright III, and surrounded them with returning vets Richie Saunders, Keba Keita, Dawson Baker and Mihailo Boskovic, to name a few.
Maybe the Cougars should’ve always taken notice of Aleksej Kostic, who signed with the Cougars back on July 23 out of his native Austria — where he was first introduced to the school courtesy of a certain former Naismith Player of the Year.
“I actually have a picture with Jimmer,” said Kostic, a freshman who signed with BYU in the midst of training camp with the Austrian national team leading up to the summer’s FIBA Men’s World Cup 2027 qualifiers. “I met him when he was playing 3×3 in Vienna. It’s kind of a fun story that I ended up playing here.”
Before he even knew it, Kostic was BYU-bound, he likes to joke.
“That’s awesome!” Fredette wrote on Instagram, when he heard the story. “Can’t wait to see him have a great year!”
But the 6-foot-4 freshman guard caught attention during the Cougars’ preseason-opening blue-white scrimmage with a shot that averaged 6.5 points per game including 36.3% from 3-point range last year with Arkadia Traiskirchen Lions of the Austrian Basketball Superliga.
While there, the former U12 judo champion from Pfaffstätten whose father played for the former Yugoslavian national team scored in double figures 20 times that included a pair of 24-point efforts to help the Lions reach the league playoff semifinals.
Two years ago, Kostic averaged 19.1 points, 2.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game for Austria at the U-18 European Division B pre-qualifiers, shooting 40.6% from deep on 6.4 triple attempts per game.
Now he’s ready to take on college basketball, with a little help from BYU head coach Kevin Young and assistants Tim Fanning and Will Voigt, who both have extensive international experience.
Doing it at Fredette’s former school is just a bonus.
“I think I’ve adjusted pretty well,” said Kostic, who prides himself on his outside shooting. “Obviously, I haven’t been here for too long, but I love it here. The opportunity I have here is crazy, and I don’t take that for granted. I try to prove myself every day in practice, and keep working.”
The eighth-ranked Cougars open the 2025-26 preseason Saturday with the first of two exhibition games, this one against Nebraska at Pinnacle Bank Arena (11 a.m. MDT, Big Ten+). Then it’s back home to host No. 25 North Carolina, Friday, Oct. 24 in Salt Lake City (7 p.m. MT, ESPN+).
“We’ve been working up to this moment,” Kostic said, “and we can’t wait to go out there (to Nebraska) and show what we’ve got.”
Back home, Kostic has fallen in love with Provo, particularly the people of Utah and the breath-taking vistas of the Wasatch Front.
“Everyone I’ve met so far has been super nice,” Kostic said. “I love the mountains; I’ve been up to Sundance. I just love it here; there’s nothing negative I can say.”
On the court, he’s fitting in well with Young’s offense.
“He can really shoot the ball,” the second-year collegiate head coach said of Kostic. “He’s a guy who I think is probably the most potent when he’s off the ball … That sucker can shoot, and he gets it off quick. He’s got a lot of experience for being a young guy.
“He’s had moments like (the scrimmage) where you just have to know where he is. That spaces the floor really well for guys like Rob and Richie.”
He’s just another piece of a highly anticipated roster Young has assembled for his second year, one that also includes former Southern Illinois standout Kennard Davis Jr. and Nate Pickens, a rising senior from El Mirage, Arizona, by way of UC Riverside.
“The ceiling is high,” said Davis, whose teammates call him “Moo” or “Moo Jr.,” after his father who played semi-pro basketball. “We’ve just got to live up to the potential. We’ve got to work every day … take it day by day, 1 percent. Stacking days.”
That includes the newcomer from Austria who arrived a little over two months ago — and is fitting in just fine.
“We have all the talent,” Kostic said. “But we’ve still got to stack days, like coach Young says, and just keep working. Take one step at a time.”
No. 8 BYU vs. Nebraska
Saturday, Oct. 18
- Tipoff: 11 a.m. MDT
- Venue: Pinnacle Bank Arena; Lincoln, Nebraska
- Streaming: Big Ten+
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.