BYU Basketball: Yoeli Childs declares for NBA Draft, will forego senior season

A day after BYU Basketball said goodbye to Dave Rose, another departure was announced.

Wednesday afternoon, BYU power forward Yoeli Childs tweeted that he would be declaring for this year’s NBA draft with the intent to hire an agent.

This will be the fifth player to depart the program this offseason with Luke Worthington and McKay Cannon finishing their eligibility and Janshire Hardnett and Rylan Bergersen opting to transfer. The departure of Yoeli will also mark the third consecutive year in which the leading scorer didn’t return for their senior season, with Eric Mika leaving early in 2017 and Elijah Bryant in 2018.

Under the new rules, which were modified in 2018, a player can now return to school if they don’t get drafted in the two rounds. Although it seems unlikely that Yoeli would return to BYU if he went undrafted, the option is still available.

In his final season with Cougars, Childs lead the team averaging 21.2 points and 9.7 rebound per game. One of his most memorable performances came earlier this season against Utah where he filled it up for 33 points (tied for a career high) and dunked poor Novak Topalovic onto a poster. Childs will certainly be missed.