Dybantsa is already dominating for Team USA.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Prep Academy’s AJ Dybantsa, a star basketball player and potential BYU commit, plays in the 5 for the Fight National Hoopfest in Pleasant Grove on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024.
The noise and the hype surrounding BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa has been blasting.
He’s an extreme talent. He’s the best young player in America. He’ll be the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. He’s the composite of what the ideal basketball player would look like and be like, size-wise, skill-wise, attitude-wise, competitiveness-wise, were you to piece such a creature together. He’s what would happen “if Kevin Garnett came back as a small forward with his intensity, athleticism [and] his team-first style,” according to ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla.
Yeah, all of that and a whole lot more has been shouted out. There even have been conversations guessing how many points the kid would average were he to be playing in the NBA right now.
He can move. He can leap. He can shoot from distance. He can flush the rock. He can beat double teams. He can and is willing to set up his teammates. He can play stone-cold defense. He is eager to learn from coaches. He is eager to test and prove his abilities against high-level opponents. He can seize the big moment with clutch plays when his team needs them.
It’s all been said, and now is being said even more as Dybantsa plays and practices with and against other top U-19 talent at the U.S. training center in Colorado Springs, where the U.S. team has been warming up for the oncoming world U-19 championship in Europe.
Word out of those practices is that Dybantsa isn’t just playing well against America’s top talent, he’s dominating it. He’s performing at levels beyond the massive hype. We’re talking about a teenager who has been judged to be the greatest in his class for years now, and those kinds of lofty evaluations haven’t slowed his growth, not one bit. He’s not getting fat-headed, he’s getting better. The dollar bills coming in — the millions — aren’t fogging over his motivation, they’re making, in his mind, his path clearer.
(Tyler Tate | AP) Anicet “AJ” Dybantsa Jr., the number one player in the 2025 class and BYU commit, stands with the fans during the second half of an NCAA basketball game between BYU and West Virginia Saturday, March 1, 2025, in Provo, Utah.
During a recent meaningless scrimmage at the camp, it is said he was barking at his teammates when they fell behind to D-up, to press harder, to play smarter. He also in one practice scrimmage scored the final 13 points, on three 3s, and two moves to the basket, to win the contest by one.
What does all of this mean? It means speculation about who and what Dybantsa is, how good he is and how good he could become is being fleshed out in front of evaluators’ eyes, people who know the game and who know what it takes to excel at and in it.
Dybantsa, in his time on campus at BYU, already has impressed those around him. They say he’s everything they thought and hoped he would be. Hype being jacked up even more. And he has yet to play his first college game.
Whether you’re a BYU basketball fan or a foe, this is going to be something to see, something to appreciate. Even in more fleshed out form, I get it, this remains speculative. Everybody’s still guessing here. But as those good guesses transition into obvious observations, and they will, BYU is set for something extra when the gym opens up a few months from now.
Barring injury — shush your mouth — the Cougars will have a season unlike any they’ve had, featuring Dybantsa, Richie Saunders, Keba Keita, Dawson Baker, Kennard Davis, Dominique Diomande, Xavion Staton, among others, all of them set up by Rob Wright, one of the top point guards in the college game.
(McDonald’s All American Games) Utah Prep’s AJ Dybantsa is the sixth BYU player to ever participate in the McDonald’s All American Games.
It may take a few minutes for Kevin Young to mold that wide-ranging group into proper form, but with the gifted freshman out front, and everything, everyone around him, BYU games will be a ticket to buy, if you can get one.
The much talked about NIL money that was required to haul Dybantsa in, those millions, have already paid off for BYU. The publicity Cougar basketball is pulling, even during the summer months, is soaring straight into the ionosphere. And, as has been the sad-and-sorry case with some overhyped players of the past, players who were hammered into the cracks between the boards on the hardwood, there is risk in all that pub.
But not much, not this time.
How many points would a kid who’s never played a minute of college basketball average in the NBA as of right now, as of this very second? Who even draws that kind of discussion — not among fans, rather among hardened, savvy basketball experts?
Dybantsa, that’s who.
The kid is aware. He knows and understands both the track he’s on and the challenges that await. He knows future opponents will focus on shutting him down and shutting everyone else up. But the fact that he’s hitherto received so much attention and acclaim, that he’s attracted a bright spotlight, that he’s got his own YouTube channel, an open window to follow his basketball and life experiences at BYU, aren’t hindrances, they’re enhancers.
As he said in a preview to that channel, “Ball is life.”
And life is ball.
In AJ Dybantsa’s most unusual existence, both will be worth watching.