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Myron Medcalf
PROVO, UTAH — IMPRESSING Kevin Young isn’t easy.
The former Phoenix Suns assistant has worked with the likes of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Chris Paul. He has seen his fair share of NBA superstars make «SportsCenter»-worthy plays. But when five-star wing AJ Dybantsa — ESPN’s No. 1 recruit in the 2025 class — rose above the rim and slammed over a couple of his teammates in a recent practice for Young’s BYU Cougars, the coach didn’t know how to react.
«He had a dunk last week, and it was insane,» Young said. «I mean, I’ve been doing this a long time. It was a top-three in-person dunk that I’ve ever seen. The first time he does that in the Marriott Center, we might have to stop the game.»
Provo isn’t exactly the setting Dybantsa had envisioned starring in when his recruitment began. He had always imagined himself playing for a blue blood; North Carolina and Kansas both were finalists on his list. But a visit to BYU — a team that has never reached the Final Four and hasn’t sent a player to the NBA in 15 years — changed everything.
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«We want AJ! We want AJ!» chants reverberated from the thousands of Cougars fans who filled the stands of a BYU football game on that October 2024 visit. The passionate response — coupled with Young’s NBA-like system and operation — made Dybantsa feel as if he had found his school.
«There were a lot of pillars for me. Obviously, my main goal is to go to the NBA and I wanted the closest thing to an NBA playing style, the closest thing to an NBA coach,» Dybantsa told ESPN. «But there was a family aspect that went into it. It felt like home when I was here on my visit. I was like, ‘I can’t not come here.'»
A reportedly high seven-figure payment didn’t hurt, either. But Dybantsa and his family say he didn’t pick the Cougars simply for the money.
With his sights set on being the potential No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA draft, the trek to BYU is the next stage in his development — even in a season with one of the strongest freshman classes in recent memory, featuring stars at traditional basketball powerhouses such as his two primary challengers for that top overall spot: Darryn Peterson at Kansas and Cameron Boozer at Duke.
But with the Cougars, Dybantsa also has an opportunity to do what Jimmer Fredette did 15 years ago — earn a place in both BYU and college basketball lore.
A year after a Sweet 16 run behind the country’s best offense, Dybantsa’s arrival could give Provo a spot on the sport’s map once thought unimaginable for a school tucked away in the Rocky Mountains of Utah.
«We’re hoping to get to the Final Four … and then play in the national championship game,» Dybantsa said. «We don’t want anything else. It’s nothing short of that.»
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«Higher percentage points win, higher percentage shots win,» Dybantsa said. «So for me, being able to take those and create those and generate those higher percentage shots — if it’s me shooting or somebody else shooting based off of [the defenders I attract] — the more games we’re going to win. I had never thought of the game like that.»
That’s why Sebastian was arguably Young’s secret weapon in the recruitment of Dybantsa, who wanted his stint in college to resemble a year with an NBA team. Sebastian used to sleep through his classes in India during his childhood after he would stay up all night to watch NBA games in the United States. Later, his love for analytics helped him land a job with the Suns, where he met Young.
Today, he puts sensors on every Cougars player in practice, and with the help of a smart ball and shot-detecting technology, he tracks every field goal attempt down to the degree from which the ball comes off a player’s fingertips — something the NBA is testing but is already standardized at BYU.
There is only one problem with these technological advancements: The batteries in those balls don’t last forever.
«It’s funny because in the middle of practice sometimes one of our guys will be like, ‘Hey, the ball is out of charge. We’ve got to switch it out,'» Sebastian said. «The ball is out of charge? Where have you ever heard of that?»
After practices, Sebastian gathers all of the information he has compiled and sends it to Dybantsa and other players.
«How often are our guys shooting? How often are they passing? How often are they driving? How often are they doing nothing? Which is what you really don’t want them to do,» Sebastian said. «You want them to maintain the advantage that they’ve created, so we’re all over all of that stuff and we track it all.»
Giannis Antetokounmpo as an assistant strength coach with the Milwaukee Bucks. Though it’s clear Dybantsa is a unique athlete, Davie has the numbers to prove it.
Dybantsa has a 40½-inch vertical leap. With that number, he would have won the standing vertical jump at the 2025 NBA draft combine — Drake Powell had the top mark with 37½ inches — by a sizable margin. Per Davie, Dybantsa’s vertical number would have also placed him in the top 4% of all NBA wings over the past 25 years. And his lateral speed, Davie said, compares to those of Antetokounmpo and Jrue Holiday when they were both All-NBA defense selections. Dybantsa also puts up more than 500 pounds on the trap bar deadlift — more than 2½ times his bodyweight.
Although he continues to work on his upper-body strength, Dybantsa has a set of characteristics few athletes at the next level can match, Davie said.
«It puts him in an elite category, in my opinion,» Davie said about Dybantsa’s numbers. «He’s strong enough, lower-body wise, to compete with the big boys, meaning the NBA guys. He’s about as strong as what I’ve seen with NBA guys. But I think he’s got areas to improve, which he is totally open to accept. He does have some elite qualities.»
DURANT OFFERED Dybantsa another critical piece of advice: to become hyperfocused on his goals. And it quickly became clear that BYU is uniquely suited for that type of locked-in experience.
Dybantsa said the vibes are different from his hometown of Boston. At home, everything was 100 miles an hour and people didn’t make a lot of time for small talk. By contrast, folks in Provo are approachable — a critical piece of the package Young presented on his initial recruiting pitch.
A recent weeknight on campus was quiet, the norm in a place that’s not packed with bars or an abundance of loud parties, and a reflection of the limitations the school’s honor code places on students to not engage in activities such as drinking alcohol.
Since the day his father pulled him from an AAU tournament as a sixth grader because he had earned a C-plus — the family rule was A’s and B’s — Dybantsa had worked to avoid distractions and grow his game. There were hiccups along the way. He once announced that he had quit the sport after his father put him through a grueling workout during the pandemic only to return a few hours later. But Dybantsa’s favorite hobby was always basketball — he only recently bought a PlayStation 5 for the first time to play against his teammates — so part of BYU’s allure was the opportunity to chase his goals in the school’s atypical environment.
Of course, all that means is Dybantsa stands out on this campus. And if anyone can relate to what’s ahead for Dybantsa in Provo, it’s Fredette.
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Dybantsa occasionally rides to class in a golf cart like some of his teammates do, but he mostly acts like a regular student at BYU with the exception of a few autograph requests. At the start of the semester, he was walking to class when a fan wearing his BYU jersey stopped him in the middle of a walkway and asked him to sign it. For now, Dybantsa obliges as he tries to blend in with the rest of the student body.
«I really try not to say no, though. I try not to,» he said. «I know some of these stories of people saying no to autograph requests. I don’t want to be the one to say no. Sometimes, if I have to get somewhere, I’ll keep walking, but I don’t want to say no.»
Young recently called Duke staffers to ask how they handled Cooper Flagg’s lone season with the Blue Devils a year ago since Dybantsa is a superstar already on campus. And that popularity demands some precautions.
Brian Santiago, the school’s new athletic director, was an administrator during Fredette’s time with the school. That experience — «they would track our planes,» he said — helped prepare the university for Dybantsa’s arrival.
«We’re prepared for it,» Santiago said. «He’s an outstanding young man, super respectful. And so now all of a sudden you’ve got a whole team of people that want to help, that want to support and they are going to help us. And I’m talking about everybody on our campus. He’s already met and talked to all of our security team. He endears himself to everyone.»
Richie Saunders, an All-Big 12 selection last season, and Robert Wright III have the potential to earn national acclaim alongside Dybantsa.
The talent pool is what Young envisioned when he left the Suns for BYU in April 2024, asking the school both for an abundance of resources to build his team, but also the opportunity to construct the team his way.
«In order to win, you’ve got to bring in high-end talent,» Young said. «I think we’ve done a decent job of getting guys from different walks of life, different talent levels, and have it all sort of come together, so it has been received well. … Frankly, we needed to get longer, more athletic, more dogs, honestly.»
The Cougars now have a backcourt that no team in America can match. With Saunders (43% from 3 in 2024-25), Wright (4.2 APG in 2025-25) and Dybantsa, they have the anchors to propel a team that owned the nation’s most efficient offense in the final three months of last season.
But BYU was never a consistent defensive team in 2024-25. The Cougars surrendered 113 points in a loss to Alabama in the Sweet 16, but Dybantsa’s arrival could also change BYU’s identity on that end of the court. The early returns have netted the Cougars a «very good» defensive rating in the 74th percentile of Division I, per Synergy Sports — an improvement from their «average» rating in the 46th percentile last season.
If it all comes together, Young could complete a magical two-year run with a BYU team that last went to the Elite Eight in 1981. If it doesn’t, the result could be viewed as a failure — but in the back of Dybantsa’s mind is an even bigger dream.
«The ultimate goal is to get to the NBA, and if you get to the NBA, you have a chance to do whatever you want,» Dybantsa said. «But No. 1 pick? I’ve got to get it.»
