Egor Demin faces his biggest test yet

To say that Egor Demin has dominated college basketball so far would be an understatement. That would be putting it very lightly.

Among artists such as Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, VJ Edgecombe, Will Riley, Khaman Maluach and many others, Demin is the leading newcomer in Box Plus Minus (BPM) so far. His 16.8 BPM puts him 1.6 points ahead of runner-up John Mobley Jr. while playing over 20% more of his team’s minutes than him.

However, his production has not been without flaws and question marks, especially given the competition he has prevailed against. Up to this point, BYU has competed against Central Arkansas, UC Riverside, Queens, Idaho and Mississippi Valley St., none of which are top schools in any way.

This isn’t Demin’s fault, of course, as all he can do is hold his own against the competition that stands in front of him, but question marks remain as a few highly productive games can’t quite erase his previously shaky ANGT performance this one Year.

The good thing is that Demin will be tested tomorrow against Ole Miss when BYU takes on them at 5:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. While they were only the 10th-best team in the SEC last year with a 7-11 record, they are already 5-0 this season and rank 86th out of 264 schools in defensive efficiency, according to Bart Torvik.

Going up against a really big team with a good defense will be great for Demin, especially if he performs well, as that would be a great sign that he can hold his own against bigger competition in the future. Competitive question marks aside, he has put up poor athleticism/physics with poor rebounding and free throw rates so far, so it will be interesting to keep an eye on that against a reasonably physical Ole Miss team as well.

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