Tim Fanning just brought a trophy back to BYU’s basketball staff. The useful part is not the trophy photo. It is the way his Netherlands U18 team survived eight games, three knockout rounds and two halftime deficits without losing once.
Fanning, BYU’s associate head coach, led the Netherlands to the FIBA U18 EuroBasket Division B championship on Sunday in Rijeka, Croatia. The Dutch finished 8-0, earned promotion to Division A and beat Poland in the final.
One scorekeeping note matters here. FIBA’s official final page records a 71-57 Netherlands win. BYU’s release says 69-57. The quarter scores on FIBA’s game record add to 71, so this article uses 71-57.
That correction does not shrink the accomplishment. It makes the real tournament run easier to see.
Eight games, no cheap escape
The Netherlands won its five group games by 100 combined points, then took all three knockout games by double digits. The official FIBA game records produce this path:
| Stage | Opponent | Result | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group | Great Britain | 69-43 | +26 |
| Group | Belgium | 86-77 | +9 |
| Group | Finland | 80-70 | +10 |
| Group | Cyprus | 90-57 | +33 |
| Group | Ireland | 89-67 | +22 |
| Quarterfinal | Georgia | 79-50 | +29 |
| Semifinal | Czechia | 78-66 | +12 |
| Final | Poland | 71-57 | +14 |
Across those eight games, the Netherlands scored 642 points and allowed 487. That is an average score of 80.3 to 60.9, with a total margin of 155 points.
The schedule gives those numbers more weight. The Dutch played group games on July 24, 25, 26, 28 and 29. After one day off, they played Georgia on July 31, Czechia on Aug. 1 and Poland on Aug. 2. Three elimination games in three days leave little time for a full reset. A coach has to simplify the next plan, manage young legs and correct mistakes without turning the hotel meeting room into a graduate seminar.
Fanning’s team kept getting better when the turnaround got shorter. That is the part worth filing away in Provo.
The final showed more than front-running
Poland led 30-29 at halftime of the championship game. The Netherlands answered by winning the third quarter 18-15 and the fourth 24-12. In other words, Fanning’s team closed the title game with a 42-27 second half.
That came one day after the Dutch trailed Czechia by five at halftime and recovered for a 78-66 semifinal win, according to BYU’s account. A perfect record can hide a soft path or one hot shooting week. Consecutive comeback wins in the two biggest games are harder to dismiss.
The final was not a shooting clinic. FIBA lists the Netherlands at 36% from the field, 20.8% from three and 60.9% at the line. The Dutch won anyway. They held Poland to 12 fourth-quarter points and created separation on a night when pretty offense was not available.
That is coaching territory. It does not prove every timeout was perfect, and a national-team result cannot be assigned to one staff member while ignoring the players and assistants. It does show that Fanning’s group had another answer when the first one did not produce easy points.
Why this matters to Kevin Young’s BYU
Fanning’s résumé made sense for BYU before this tournament. KSL’s report on his 2024 hire traced a career through Overtime Elite, Maccabi Tel Aviv, New Zealand and the NBA G League. It also emphasized player development, which is not a decorative phrase when a staff is trying to prepare talented teenagers for professional basketball.
Now there is a current head-coaching result attached to that résumé.
The Netherlands went 4-3 and finished ninth under Fanning at the 2025 Division B event. One summer later, it went 8-0, won the event for the second time in national history and returned to Division A for the first time since 2019. That year-over-year jump is more useful than treating one gold medal as magic.
It also fits a BYU roster-building lane that keeps getting wider. The Cougars have pursued players with European and international development backgrounds, including Dovydas Buika. Fanning’s work abroad does not guarantee BYU a signing. It does give the program a coach who can speak from recent experience about FIBA basketball, short tournament preparation and the demands placed on young international players.
That matters in recruiting, but the bigger payoff should come after a player signs. BYU’s men’s basketball roster contains different basketball languages, development timelines and role expectations. Somebody has to turn all of that variety into a team that can solve the second half of a Big 12 game.
Keep the lesson in bounds
The Netherlands title does not mean BYU will suddenly play Dutch national-team basketball. Fanning was the head coach in Croatia; Kevin Young remains the head coach in Provo. The personnel, rules, competition and practice calendar are different.
It also does not answer BYU’s frontcourt rotation, shooting or defensive questions. Those will be settled by the Cougars, not by a youth tournament overseas. The nonconference schedule will ask its own questions soon enough.
The fair takeaway is narrower and better: BYU has an associate head coach who just managed a young team through an 8-0 international tournament, a three-games-in-three-days knockout finish and consecutive halftime deficits. His group won with offense early, defense late and enough composure to avoid one bad half becoming the end of the event.
That is a real coaching receipt. No parade down University Avenue is required. Kevin Young should still be very glad it belongs to his staff.
Sources and further reading
- FIBA: official Netherlands team profile
- FIBA: official tournament games and results
- FIBA: Poland 57, Netherlands 71 final record
- FIBA: final standings
- Official BYU Athletics: Fanning leads Netherlands to Division B title
- Official BYU Athletics: Tim Fanning staff profile
- KSL: BYU basketball adds Tim Fanning to coaching staff
- BYU Sport Nuts context: men’s basketball hub, roster, international roster analysis, and BYU’s NBA-development test
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