College Commitment: Bostyn Holt (2018 Roosevelt/Coffeyville JC)
To say the past few weeks have been a whirlwind for Bostyn Holt would be an understatement. Coming off the high of winning an NJCAA national championship with Coffeyville (KS), the all-around 6-foot-7, 190-pound swingman from Portland started receiving calls from Division I college coaches left and right, and the scholarship offers started coming in. It was getting flat out crazy but Holt knew where he wanted to continue his college career and announced on Tuesday that he’ll be heading to the University of Utah.
“Coach (Craig) Smith – he’s a winner; at Utah State the past three years he made the tournament every year,” Holt said. “I choose winners and that was the main factor for me. That’s why I went to Coffeyville – Coach (Jay) Herkelman is a Hall-of-Famer and he’s a winner as well. Utah is in the Pac-12 and that’s one of the highest levels you can play at and plus I’m a West Coast kid. I grew up watching the Pac and now my people can come and watch me.”
Holt chose Utah over several other offers including Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Iona, Idaho, and Portland State. His phone started blowing up after Coffeyville’s NJCAA title run, in which he tallied 12 points and 13 rebounds in the title game win over Cowley. Holt had a mission going into Hutchinson and consider that mission met.
“I’m not going to lie, my whole life I’ve had the talent and I’ve always been a good player – I just never had that stage where I could be seen,” Holt said. “So I told myself when I got to that national tournament and we got to that championship, I was going to perform and show everybody what they were missing out on these past couple of years.
The last time we saw Holt play in Oregon was the 2017-18 season with Roosevelt, where he helped lead the Roughriders to the second round of the playoffs. Without any Division I offers on the table, he opted for a year at Elite Prep in Washington and then headed the JC route at Coffeyville the past two seasons. As a freshman, he averaged 6.7 points and 3.9 rebounds and upped those numbers to 9.6 points and 6.5 rebounds this past year.
Holt broke down his development since high school. “I’ve gotten a lot stronger, a lot quicker, and I play a lot harder now,” Holt said. “I figured out that at that next level you can’t be too nonchalant. You’ve got to be a dog, especially in junior college because everybody is trying to climb to get to that next level. Only the strong survive out there.”
“But I would say that I just got smarter,” Holt continued. “I learned how to pick my spots a little more and I learned that if you’re not getting the ball, if you go get that rebound then you don’t have to pass it – you can just get it and go. I just try to be as versatile as I can. It was a long two years with a lot of development and I want to thank the Coffeyville coaches, they helped me change my game a lot.”
With his recruitment now over, Holt is obviously looking forward to the future but is also quite reflective of how he got to this point. “It’s been a long, long journey,” Holt said. “I’ve just been blessed. I keep my circles small, I stay with my family and my cousins. I just thank God and I’m embracing all the love right now.”
Holt ranked as the #15 player in the final PrepHoops Oregon Class of 2018 rankings. He’s the first Division I player from Roosevelt since Brett Johnson and current Benson High School principal Curtis Wilson walked on at Oregon in the late 1980s. Our congratulations go out to Holt and his family on his decision.
100% COMMITTED #BetOnYourself pic.twitter.com/KGIpGN4ows
— bostyn ???????? (@bostynholt) May 11, 2021