VCU Star Max Shulga Reflects On Past History Against BYU
Mar 19, 2025, 5:57 PM
DENVER – Former Utah State Aggies player Max Shulga has emerged as a star in the Atlantic 10 Conference at VCU.
Shulga was the A-10 Player of the Year this season. He’s helped guide VCU to a 28-6 record.
Shulga is averaging 15.1 points, 5.9 rebounds, and knocking down 38.6% from three this season.
Max Shulga: Utah State to VCU
During his three years in Logan with Utah State, Shulga faced BYU twice. He played only three minutes in the last matchup between the in-state schools in 2021, which current VCU coach Ryan Odom also coached.
BYU won that matchup in 2021, 82-71.
Two years later, Shulga followed Odom to Richmond, Virginia, to play for the Rams. He’s averaged 14.5 points on 44% shooting from the field during his time at VCU.
During VCU’s press conference on Wednesday at the NCAA Tournament in Denver, Shulga was asked if he had any memories of facing BYU in the past.
“They obviously switched the whole coaching staff from the last time I played them, and the team looks very different from the last time I played them, too,” Shulga said. “We’ve just got to treat them like a brand new team. We know that they shoot a lot of threes, crash, stuff like that, throw extra passes.
“We’re just treating them like a brand new team. I don’t think there’s any similarities from the time when I played them last to this year.”
Shulga was the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year in 2025
Shulga is right when he says it’s a completely different team. Kevin Young now coaches BYU, and there are only two BYU players (Trevin Knell and Fousseyni Traore) who have been with the Cougars since that matchup with Shulga and the Aggies in 2021.
Shulga leads a red-hot VCU team into March Madness. The Rams punched their ticket to the “Big Dance” by winning the A-10 last week.
Since the calendar turned to 2025, VCU is 18-2.
Does that recent success, particularly in the A-10 Tournament, with winning a bracket give them a chance to spring the upset against No. 6 seed BYU?
“I would say yeah, just because we’ve played — even though we played three games in three days, it is, like you said, momentum-gaining experience. But things really move so quickly. You don’t even really realize or think about — that was in the moment we celebrated, but then we just moved on,” Shulga said.
“The next day, we had film, and then the next day, we left, and now we’re here again. It’s moving so quickly that it’s not even really time to think about its depth. Now we have another game to play that we’re trying to win.”
BYU vs. VCU
First Round – 2025 NCAA Tournament
Location: Denver, Colorado
Arena: Ball Arena
Tip-Off: 2:05 p.m. (MDT)
TV: TNT
Radio: KSL NewsRadio (102.7 FM, 1160 AM in Utah – Extended pregame begins at Noon)
Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X: @Mitch_Harper.
