BYU Basketball Recruiting: Russian Forward Agasiy Tonoyan to stay in Europe, will not attend BYU

BYU and Tonoyan both wanted to make it happen, but Russian forward Agasiy Tonoyan will not be coming to BYU.

Tonoyan informed me Friday evening that he will not be coming stateside and will instead play professionally in Russia or somewhere in Europe.

We detailed Tonoyan’s recruiting story and background a few months ago, and Tonoyan has been hopeful over the past year that he would be able to find a way to get into BYU.

Tonoyan tried to get into BYU before the 2017-2018 season, but his TOEFL examine (English Language Proficiency Test) scores were not high enough to be accepted to BYU.

Tonoyan took the TOEFL again in early April with hopes of getting admitted to BYU, but it appears he ran into the same setback. Tonoyan’s English skills have always been a work in progress, and they are the main reason for why he will not be attending BYU.

Tonoyan did tell me that he could go to another university, but that BYU was the only university he wanted to attend.

With this latest news, BYU’s roster has more clarity heading into the 2018-2019 season. Yoeli Childs’ NBA decision will have ramifications on BYU’s scholarship situation, and as it stands now, Childs’ return would put BYU one over the 13-scholarship limit with the additions of Nick Emery, Gavin Baxter and Connor Harding.

Assuming the aforementioned players are on the roster next season and BYU doesn’t have a player transfer, coaches will have to decide who will get his scholarship pulled.

BYU will likely want to get its scholarship situation settled before the June 25 Summer term begins.