On a random afternoon, your phone starts to buzz. Lighting up your home screen, you can see that one of your buddies has just made an outrageous claim: BYU basketball is the team to beat in the recruiting race for AJ Dybantsa. Yes, the top recruit in the 2025 recruiting class--who recently transferred to Utah Prep and reportedly took a visit to BYU--apparently has a very strong interest in playing college hoops in Provo.
The Dybantsa conversation begins around the 42:00 mark.
"Who's the team to beat, if I were asking you right now for AJ Dybantsa? And immediately, you know what the guy said? BYU."CBS College Basketball
Unless you're close with AJ, and you aren't, you have no way of confirming this rumor. I mean that's crazy, right? Only a few months ago, such a report would be taken with a significant grain of salt, yet the recent momentum behind the BYU basketball program makes the news almost... believable.
It's like Monty Navarro being told that he may have a claim to the D'ysquith family fortune--his mother's maiden name on his birth certificate said D'ysquith, but why should he believe such a rumor when the source may not be rock-solid? Despite all this, both rumors seem to hold a degree of authenticity.
"When the casual college basketball fan hears that, they'd say "What?" but [it's] for real. He's going to school in Utah right now. BYU just hired a coach with a pro background."
Now, does this mean Dybantsa to BYU is a lock? No, of course not, straw-man. In the modern age of college hoops, nothing is a lock until the ink has dried on the NLI (and sometimes not even then). What this rumor does indicate, however, is that BYU basketball is moving in a very positive direction and a serious contender for the top talent in the nation. A year ago they'd be the last one you'd expect.