Due Diligence Becomes a Duo
Williams’ recruitment of a player landed a coach
Mike Brohard
The name pops up in the portal.
Do a bit of research. Check the numbers, verify the height. Go deeper, back to high school. Look at those numbers and start drawing a line from there to here and project beyond. Watch some film. Watch some more. Have your staff watch some. Watch it together. Gather a consensus – thumbs up, thumbs down.
In the case of Lexus Bargesser, all thumbs went up. But you need to know more if you’re Ryun Williams at Colorado State. Due diligence requires a background check. You like the player, love the game, but what about the person? Will she fit into the team dynamic?
So, they talked and now the other side was sold.
“Honestly, from the very first call I had with Coach Williams, I loved it. I remember calling my parents afterwards and I was so excited because I didn't really know what to expect when I went in the portal,” Bargesser said. “To start off with such a great conversation from a great school, I was super excited. And then what really made my final decision was when I came here, it just felt like home. It felt comfortable, felt like family.
“And the coaches, I mean, just like size too, but so direct and you can ask them anything, you know, they're going to tell you the truth and tell you how it is. And I just really admired that from the coaching staff.”
Interesting, considering what would happen later, but back to the point.
Now Williams has to pick up the phone. Send a text, set up a phone call. In the case of Bargesser, contact former Indiana assistant Linda Sayavongchanh. Assistant Rico Burkett knows of her. So does Williams, going back to her playing days – when he remembers but she doesn’t – rejecting his offer to play for him at Wayne State.
“That is correct. You know, we obviously saw Lexus in the transfer portal and she’s an impressive talent and thought that's somebody that would really fit how we like to play,” Williams said. “And then once you start researching a player and where she's at, where she's from, who's connected to this young lady and Rico actually is from Des Moines, Iowa.
“Coach Sy is from Des Moines, Iowa. I think Rico had reached out to Sy maybe a year prior about something and so they had a little bit of a connection and so I just got the contact from Rico. Rico said call this coach, call coach Sy. I knew who she was from her days playing at Drake. I actually made one recruiting phone call to Sy when she was a player. I was a quick no on her end.”
Williams and his staff felt they knew who Bargesser was as a player, but they needed to know more, and Coach Sy – as she’s known on the team – had the real low-down, having been an assistant coach with the Hoosiers the entire time.
As Williams would find out during her official visit, Sayavongchanh was her favorite coach. And Sayavongchanh loved her game.
“I wouldn't have told Coach Williams to recruit her if I didn't believe that. But it's just cool to see Lex here in a different environment where she can be confident and just be herself on the floor,” Sayavongchanh said. “So that's been really cool to see for me.
“She's playing freely into her capabilities that we know. But she just, the biggest thing to me is she looks confident out there as our front guard.”
Both sides are happy, so all that’s left is signing on the dotted line, which Bargesser did, because she saw more in her game and so did Williams.
She averaged 3.2 points per game while with Indiana, but the thing is, as a prep, she lit up scoreboards offensively. It just wasn’t what she was asked to do at Indiana, though she was tasked to guard the likes of Caitlin Clark and JuJu Watkins.
She’s seen the bright lights, been in high-intensity games, and that’s what Sayavongchanh related to Williams. It’s what Bargesser is excited about as a Ram, the promise of fulfilling hers.
“Yeah, I think my biggest goal when I was choosing a school was to go somewhere that the coach believed in me and believed in my game. And from the first conversation throughout all the conversations before finally committing here, Coach Williams kept nailing in like, this is what you're going to do for us,” Bargesser said. “We believe in this like you're going to be that player for us here. You can be who you were in high school. And I was really confident in that, and excited.”
Most tales in recruiting would end there. The coaches say thank you for the help, wish each other well in the future and go about their own way. But the texts didn’t stop, thanks to Sayavongchanh, who was looking for a new job.
She texted Williams to see if he had one near the end of April. He didn’t at the time.
But he would a week later.
I mean, yeah, everything that Coach Williams told me on the phone was true, was going to be true. And I'm in a new place now, and I can start fresh. And he wanted that for me.Lexus Bargesser
“It's crazy. You know, but it's just that's how things happen,” Sayavongchanh said. “It's just so crazy. If I didn't follow up with him, though, he would have never known that. He would never have known that I was in the portal. But I followed up with him just seeing how her visit was going, and I'm glad I did. I'm glad I texted him about her.”
In an instant, the recruiting of a player led to the recruitment of a coach. Those recent conversations, how they went, the knowledge which came from the other side, resonated with Williams.
Now he’s doing a bit more digging. Likes what he knows already, like what he finds just as much. Another text. Another phone call. Eventually, another offer.
“Two things that really kind of stood out. One, the directness,” Williams said of Sayavongchanh. “A lot of times when you make those phone calls maybe they, you know, paint a very rosy picture and you might not get the real background or whatever of a recruit. She was just very straightforward and I, as an older coach, appreciate that. You know, I don't like dancing around things. And then two, she had spent seven years at Creighton under Coach (Jim Flanery) who I've got a ton of respect for, and I knew her as a player.
“So, I knew the type of competitor she was, and I know she had a really good basketball mind, and in our conversations you could tell that this cat knows the game, and so, when she was looking it didn't take me long to think she would be an incredible fit here.”
So how does Williams let his new player know he’s considering adding her old coach to his staff, or even eventually, will be joining her in Fort Collins. The short answer is: He doesn’t.
Recall the honesty which Bargesser said was so important to her while she was being recruited?
The sly smile Williams can pull off appears on his face.
“I did not. I did not call Lexus and ask,” Williams said. “You know, just because we wanted Lexus so bad. I didn't know what the relationship was between Lexus and Sy. Maybe it was sideways. I don't know, but I wasn't gonna sabotage the recruitment of Bargesser for Coach Sy. Although I love Coach Sy, it's all about Lexus Bargesser.
“Pretty much shady. OK, yes. Welcome to recruiting.”
As fate would have it, there was nothing to worry about, and Williams sort of knew as much. When Bargesser was on her official visit, he overheard her mother, Lori, saying Sayavongchanh was always her favorite coach, even though she wasn’t her primary coach positionally.
That’s because Lori had been asked about Sayavongchanh, which Bargesser overheard, thinking to herself it’s a good thing the family only has good things to say about her. Heck, Lori and Sayavongchanh still sent messages back and forth.
“I mean, I never thought she was going to come here, too. But when I found out she was, I told my parents and it was never the question of, oh, how do you feel about that?” Bargesser said. “It was just we were all just so excited.”
Not that anybody came out and just said it was going to be a reunion. All the coaches involved basically danced around the issue when speaking with Bargesser directly.
The player finally put the pieces together in a conversation with Sayavongchanh.
“I came and visited here, and I didn't want to tell her until I knew fully that I was committed to coming here. I actually called her,” Sayavongchanh said. “I told Coach Ryun I was coming here and I was like, I should probably call Lexie and tell her. So, I called her, and I actually didn't tell her right away. I was, you know, we haven't talked in a while, and you never really told me why you chose Colorado State. Why did you end up choosing CSU? And so, I let her go on about why she chose CSU, knowing that I was coming here, but I just wanted to hear her reasons. She says something about Coach Williams, and I said, ‘oh actually, I just talked to him the other day.’
“She goes, ‘wait, what?’ And so, I basically told her in that way, but I said everything you said, you know, why you chose CSU is the same reason why I'm going to CSU. And then we were like, oh my God, wait, what? She actually thought I was lying, but it was pretty cool.”
Bygones. Practice started in the summer, and it felt like family. Becoming familiar with the players took no time at all for Bargesser, and deep down, it felt good to have a coach on staff who knew not just her game but knew who she was as a person. Her hopes and her dreams and understand where they were rooted,
They all ended up at the same place, and while Bargesser was the last to know, she can forgive the subterfuge by the adults as they have ultimately been true to their word about everything she wanted – a chance to be the player she’s always envisioned.
“Honestly, it was a sigh of relief that the first day I came into practice, and I passed up a shot, and Coach Williams was like, what are you doing?” Bargesser said. “I mean, yeah, everything that Coach Williams told me on the phone was true, was going to be true. And I'm in a new place now, and I can start fresh.
“And he wanted that for me.”
So did Sayavongchanh. Who would have expected they would all have a front row seat for the season, one which begins Tuesday night as the Rams take the floor with Weber State.
Definitely not Williams. Recruiting can take some weird turns, have some unexpected moments with unseen twists and turns. Just never like this.
“This is the first ever to be honest with you,” Williams said, “and I'm glad that it happened.”
Open the portal and see the name. Do the research. Do the due diligence and produce a duo – player and coach -- in one fell swoop.
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