Player of the year? BYU’s AJ Dybantsa makes another strong case – Deseret News

WACO, Texas — Baylor’s Tounde Yessoufou was the leading scorer with 37 points on 12-of-19 shooting, and BYU’s Rob Wright silenced many in the angry crowd of 7,371 at Foster Pavilion with his best game as a Cougar on Tuesday night.

But the best player on the floor in BYU’s 99-94 win, its fifth Quad 1 win of the season and first since it beat Clemson at Madison Square Garden, was 6-foot-9 AJ Dybantsa.

Again.

Clearly, the Brockton, Massachusetts, product continues to play himself into consideration for national player-of-the-year honors, moving into the stratosphere with guys such as Duke’s Cameron Boozer, Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson and Texas Tech’s JT Toppin.

“Whatever award you are giving out, AJ Dybantsa has to be in the conversation,” ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg said via X on Wednesday. “It is not a foregone conclusion that Cameron Boozer is going to win this award. … What Dybantsa is doing is absolutely ridiculous. … Everyone sets their defense to minimize his impact on the game, but you just can’t.”

Baylor learned that the hard way, as Dybantsa added to Wright’s career-high 30-point outing with 36 points on 14-of-20 shooting. The freshman also grabbed five rebounds, dished out seven assists, and went 7 of 8 from the free-throw line while committing just one turnover in 40 minutes.

“I mean, (winning) was everything tonight,” Dybantsa said, after noting that the team wanted to get the victory for Wright, who was returning to Baylor for the first time since playing for the Bears last season. “Like I just said, I didn’t expect to drop four straight. But it was adversity and that makes us stronger. So this was a must-win for us. We didn’t want to come out of here under .500 in the Big 12.”

Yessoufou, Dybantsa’s former teammate in the McDonald’s All-America game last year when both were high school seniors, was also sensational as Baylor trimmed a 17-point BYU lead to 4 in the final moments. He was 8 of 8 from the free-throw line as both teams went 20 of 25 from the charity stripe.

“We’re just competitors, so we went at each other for sure late in the game,” Dybantsa said. “And I will see him at the next level, for sure.”

Not only did the Cougars avoid a five-game losing streak for the first time since 2005, they snapped a streak of five-straight blown Quad 1 opportunities. They committed just five turnovers and shot 55.9% from the field while scoring 64 points in the paint.

“I mean, we just came off (playing) Houston. So they probably got us ready, if I am being honest,” Wright said.

In this day and age when load management has reached the college game (read: Kansas star freshman Darryn Peterson has missed almost as many games as he’s played), Dybantsa continues to answer the bell night after night.

Coach Kevin Young said the Cougars learned things from the recent losses to Houston, Oklahoma State and Kansas that helped them Tuesday, while also acknowledging that the defense needs to improve. Baylor shot 51.6% from the field and 47.6% from 3-point range (10 of 21).

“It’s a long season for a reason. You gotta ride the wave. And I’m just proud of the way that our guys gutted this out and showed up, especially at the beginning, where we had to kind of find the right combinations of players,” Young said. “Different guys stepped up, so that, for me, makes it even more rewarding for our team.”

For BYU to jump back into the picture for a top-four (protected) seed in the NCAA Tournament, the Cougars will not only need to improve their defense, they will need to make more 3-pointers. They were 3 of 19 from beyond the arc Tuesday, but made up for it with a relentless attack of the rim.

“When the 3s start falling for us, the lid is going to blow off this thing,” Young said. “And when you don’t turn it over, all the more potent that offense becomes.”

Dybantsa now has four of the top five scoring performances by a freshman in BYU history. Danny Ainge has the other, having scored 36 points against Idaho State in 1977. Dybantsa has scored at least 20 points in 17 games, tied for the 15th most in a single season in program history.

“Someone would have to tell me when the last time in a Big 12 game three guys had over 30 (points),” Young said. “There was some high-level stuff going on with all three of them.”

Dybantsa leads the country with a 24.5 scoring average. The next closest high-scorers are Kansas State’s PJ Haggerty, Jordan Riley of East Carolina and Daeshun Ruffin of Jackson State. They are all averaging 23.3 points per game and Duke’s Boozer is averaging 23.0 per game.

“I thought AJ was unreal,” Young concluded.

Unreal enough to make him a real candidate for player of the year consideration.