LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – JUNE 29: AJ Dybantsa of USA skies for a powerful dunk during the FIBA U19 … More
AJ Dybantsa still has four months remaining until his first college game. Still, the incoming freshman at BYU is already a household name in basketball circles and a potential All-American and No. 1 overall selection in next year’s NBA draft.
This past week, Dybantsa only added to the hype surrounding him. He was named the Most Valuable Player of the FIBA U19 Men’s World Cup after leading Team USA to a 109-76 victory over Germany in Sunday’s championship game in Sweden. Dybantsa had 11 points on 4-of-11 shooting and 6 rebounds in 19 minutes in the final and averaged 14.3 points on 50% shooting, 4.1 rebounds and 2.3 assists in the event’s seven games.
Team USA went undefeated in the tournament, winning by an average of 39 points per game. They defeated Canada, 108-102, in Friday’s quarterfinals but no other game was decided by fewer than 15 points.
Two years after Team USA finished a disappointing fourth in the FIBA U19 World Cup despite having two of the top six picks in this year’s NBA draft (Dylan Harper and Tre Johnson), they got back on track this year and won their ninth gold medal in the event’s history.
Team USA had three of the top 10 recruits in the high school class of 2025, according to the 247Sports Composite, with Dybantsa (No. 1), Louisville guard Mikel Brown Jr. (No. 8) and Arizona forward Koa Peat (No. 9) plus four of the top five recruits in the class of 2026 in forward Tyran Stokes (No. 1), guard Jordan Smith (No. 2), guard Brandon McCoy (No. 3) and guard Caleb Holt (No. 5). They also had two players in 7-foot-4 center Daniel Jacobsen (Purdue) and forward Morez Johnson Jr. (Michigan) who are entering their sophomore years of college.
Throughout the tournament, it was a balanced effort with nine players averaging between 8 and 15 points per game and 11 of the 12 players averaging between 14 and just over 23 minutes per game.
Still, the MVP went to Team USA’s most famous player in Dybantsa, a 6-foot-9 forward who turned 18 in January. He was originally set to graduate from high school in 2026, but he announced in October 2023 that he would reclassify to the Class of 2025, meaning he could enter college and the NBA earlier.
After receiving interest from most major colleges, Dybantsa committed last December to BYU, a school that traditionally does not sign top recruits. But the Cougars and their well-heeled boosters have been investing in Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) in the past two years and reportedly signed Dybantsa to an NIL deal worth millions of dollars. Dybantsa, a Massachusetts native, played his senior year at Utah Prep Academy, about 250 miles north of BYU’s campus.
Dybantsa is the only 5-star high school recruit to sign with BYU since 247Sports began ranking high school players in 2004. BYU’s next two most highly ranked recruits during that 21-year period are center Xavion Staton, Dybantsa’s teammate at Utah Prep who is entering his freshman season, and forward Kanon Catchings, who averaged 7.2 points as a freshman last season. Catchings transferred to Georgia in May.
Dybantsa is joining an experienced BYU team that returns two starters in guard Richie Saunders (16.5 points per game on 51.8% shooting last season) and center Keba Keita (7.4 points and 7.9 rebounds in 21 minutes per game). The Cougars also signed five transfers, including point guard Rob Wright, who averaged 111.5 points and 4.2 assists per game as a freshman at Baylor last season, and guard Kennard Davis, who averaged 16.3 points as a sophomore at Southern Illinois last season.
BYU is No. 3 in CBS Sports analyst Gary Parrish’s most recent preseason rankings and is likely to be ranked in the top 10 in the Associated Press preseason poll for the first time when that is released in October. In fact, since 1980, BYU has been ranked in the preseason AP poll just twice: No. 18 in 1980 entering Danny Ainge’s senior season and No. 24 in 2010 entering Jimmer Fredette’s senior season.
Ainge and Fredette are the only two players in BYU history to be named a first team AP All-American. They are third and second, respectively, among the program’s all-time leading scorers. Dybantsa, meanwhile, will almost certainly leave after his freshman season, so he is no threat to surpass Ainge and Fredette on the school’s career lists. Still, Dybantsa is already receiving the same amount or more attention than those two legends did heading into their final seasons, and the hype is only going to grow as the season gets closer.
