Kyle Guy on Nevada, coaching, NIL temptations

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Kyle Guy may be in Nevada, but it’s almost like he’s home again, surrounded by former Indiana personnel on the University of Nevada basketball staff.

Guy, who returned to Virginia last year to join the Cavaliers’ staff and to learn from his former coach Tony Bennett, had to decide whether he wanted to stay at UVA with new coach Ryan Odom or look elsewhere. Odom offered Guy the same position on his staff that Guy had on the previous staff (confirmed by Odom).

“It was a crazy process,” Guy told Tate Frazier on One Shining Podcast this week. “So I started off like I wanted to stay at Virginia, that was the plan. And right before the Final Four, I had decided that I wasn’t going to stay anymore.”

Guy received a phone call from Nevada coach Steve Alford — like Guy, a former Mr. Basketball in Indiana.

“So the whole (Nevada) staff is from Indiana, essentially,” Guy said.

Tate pointed out, and Guy agreed, that this entire Nevada staff should be the staff at Indiana, but that’s another story.

“I grew up going to Steve Alford’s camps in Franklin, Indiana,” Guy said. “I went like four or five years in a row and I got real close with Bryce Alford (Steve’s son).”

Guy was talking to one of the Nevada assistant coaches, who asked him what his plans were.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m staying, but it’s a transition, so I’ll entertain anything. If you hear something, let me know.’ It wasn’t about Nevada,” Guy said of the conversation. “Nevada was just like, if you hear anything else, let me know, and then, literally right when I decided I wasn’t going to go back to Virginia, I texted Nevada and said, ‘Hey, if you want to meet in San Antonio, let’s meet for real.

“We met the first day we were out there and then Coach Alford called me the next day and offered me the spot.”

Guy said he knew he wanted to coach at some point, “because I’m a dude who just has a lot of passions,” and wants to try a bunch of different things in life. Transitioning from a playing career to coaching seemed like the smoothest way to get that accomplished.

“I still played in practice every day (at UVA), so that was fun. Like still being able to play against the guys, stay in shape, and earn some sweet respect … it’s a term I use,” Guy told Frazier. “I was really in charge, with one other guy (Chase Coleman) of player development.

“We were working with [the players] every day, seeing them get better during the games, like it was full-circle. I really enjoyed that. And then, the tactical, I just kind of got the bug. Another fellow coach, Isaiah Wilkins, who just got hired at Cal, told me I was going to get the bug. I think I’m going to do this for a year or two, and then, try another venture.”

Guy said he likes the fast pace of building a roster, hosting portal prospects, the whole NIL thing, lots of problem-solving, which is something that interests him.

Frazier noted that with coaches like Bennett, Jim Boeheim, Roy Williams, Jay Wright and Mike Krzyzewski all retiring because of the changes in the sport, how does Guy deal with those issues?

“Coach Bennett likes to remind us all that we were the last amateur champions (2019),” Guy said. “I am an advocate of the player getting paid. Coach Bennett is an advocate off the players getting paid. It’s just not what NIL was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a market for them to use your name, image, likeness to go to McDonald’s, sign a marketing deal with a sponsor, like The Good Feet Store in Charlottesville. That’s what it was supposed to be. Not pay for play. Let’s have something established, right?

“Even in Europe, there’s rules. You can pay a guy almost anything you want, but there’s rules how it’s done. These agents are texting players during the season an taking 15, 20 percent, and some of them don’t even have a license, because you don’t have to have one, and somebody’s cousin is just taking advantage. Sometimes there’s great ones. There’s good ones and bad ones. You’ve got to adapt or die, so let’s roll.”

Frazier also brought up the topic of loyalty to programs in 2025. It’s not like fans can point and say, ‘Oh, he’s a Duke guy, or he’s a Carolina guy, or a Virginia guy.’ Now they’re “four-by-four guys,” four schools in four years. How’s that going to sit with fans years from now with no allegiance from the players?

While Guy said he is loyal to a fault, even he admitted that had an enhanced NIL been available after he was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four during the 2019 national championship, things might have been different for him.

“I like to think after we won the championship, if I come back for my senior year during NIL, I like to think that I would have came back no matter what, but at the end of the day, man, if Virginia was offering $500,000 and whoever else is offering $2.5 million, I’m just being honest, I’m probably taking 2.5 money,” Guy said.

To listen to Guy’s entire interview, check out “One Shining Podcast,” with Tate Frazier.