Don’t have sex or drink coffee, AJ Dybantsa. BYU doesn’t mess around

The No. 1 basketball recruit in 2025 is headed to an unlikely destination: a school with an honor code that isn't afraid to enforce it

One of the biggest college basketball stories of the year dropped last Tuesday on, of all places, ESPN’s “First Take.”

Following a debate over the possibility of Bill Belichick becoming the North Carolina head coach and whether or not his 24-year-old girlfriend is a sign he knows how to connect with today’s youth, A.J. Dybantsa, the phenom who’s the No. 1 recruit nationally in the 2025 class, announced his commitment to BYU.

If ESPN reserving 20 minutes for a 17-year-old basketball player on its marquee morning shouting program weren’t enough of an indication, Dybantsa’s commitment was a big, big deal.

Though he’ll come into college basketball one year after someone with similar accolades, Cooper Flagg, did the same, Dybantsa is the type of prospect that comes around only so often. He was described by ESPN as “the epitome of a modern-day NBA wing, possessing size, skill and explosiveness.” Given his size and athleticism, he’s a matchup nightmare, with a polished, versatile and aggressive game, to boot. At the Nike Peach Jam last summer, he averaged an event-high 25.8 points per game despite playing up an age group.

I could add more technical language and stats, but watching a highlight video of him does a much better job of driving the point home:

Any time the top-ranked player in a recruiting class announces his destination, it’s going to make waves. When it’s someone of Dybantsa’s caliber, it’s that much more notable.

What felt different and potentially more seismic about Dybantsa’s commitment, though, is where he chose.

BYU has, by almost any measurement, a strong basketball program. The Cougars have been to the NCAA Tournament 13 times this century. They’ve won at least 20 games in 17 of the past 19 seasons. In their first season in the Big 12, the most difficult conference in the country, they went 23-11 last season, finished fifth in the 14-team league and did so well that their coach was able to get one of the most coveted jobs in the sport.

For all of its recent accolades, though, BYU is swimming in different kinds of waters by landing Dybantsa. It not only raises eyebrows of how they got him – speaking logistically, not about anything more nefarious – but what will be awaiting him once he arrives in Provo.

BYU has become a recruiting juggernaut virtually overnight

By selecting BYU over North Carolina and Kansas, two of the sport’s preeminent brands and historical powers, as well as Alabama, a reigning Final Four participant and one of the favorites to win this season’s national title, Dybantsa stunned many casual college basketball fans.

Given BYU’s track record, that sense of shock is understandable. For all of the wins they have stacked up, the Cougars hadn’t exactly been tearing it up on the recruiting trail, even when Mark Pope was leading the program.

From 2017-22, BYU never had a recruiting class ranked higher than 80th nationally, according to 247Sports. In five of those six years, it was 111th or worse, including 169th in 2022. During that stretch, the highest-ranked player it scored a commitment from was No. 143 in their class.

Over the past nine months, since Pope left to become the head coach at Kentucky, the Cougars’ recruiting prowess has grown dramatically. Shortly after new coach Kevin Young was hired, they put together the No. 28 2024 class, which included the Nos. 16 and 41 national recruits. With Dybantsa in the fold, its 2025 class is No. 7, with a haul that also includes the country’s No. 22 prospect, big man Xavion Staton, as well as four-star forward Chamberlain Burgess.

That success has come after an increased investment in basketball, with a handful of prominent figures helping lead the charge. Multi-billionaire Ryan Smith, a BYU alum who’s the owner of the NBA’s Utah Jazz and the newly enshrined Utah Hockey Club of the NHL, has played a prominent role at his alma mater, as has another BYU alum, Danny Ainge, the former NBA player and Boston Celtics general manager who’s now an executive with the Jazz.

"If they need my help, I'm going to help them," Smith told ESPN months before Dybantsa’s commitment. "I owe everything to BYU and I'm not going to say no. And they know that."

A.J. Dybantsa’s commitment to BYU didn’t exactly come out of nowhere

For those who follow the sport a little closer, Dybantsa’s announcement wasn’t a total stunner.