The college basketball season is heating up as conference play rages on, and Saturday was a historic day across the country, especially for a freshman class that is heralded as one of the best in recent memory at this level. On a day full of upsets, BYU avoided that with a comfortable 91-78 win over Utah at home.
As usual, AJ Dybantsa was the best player on the floor for the Cougars and was the reason that Kevin Young and company got the win, finishing with 43 points on 15-for-24 shooting in arguably the best game of his young college career. With that performance, Dybantsa broke Danny Ainge's record for most points in a game by a BYU freshman.
“It feels good to break any record — if it was Danny's or not,” Dybantsa said, via ESPN. “I just thank my teammates for just giving me the ball in the right spots. God was on my side. I was hitting shots.”
Dybantsa was getting to all his spots, dominating at the rim and also knocking down shots from the outside. The star freshman drilled 4-of-5 3-pointers and got to the charity stripe 10 times, sinking nine of them.
The potential No. 1 overall pick has been one of the top players in all of college basketball this season and will be an All-American candidate at season's end if he keeps it up. After this latest epic game, he is averaging 23.6 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, good for second in the nation in scoring.
BYU is now 17-2 in large part thanks to Dybantsa's scoring punch, and is currently one of the contenders to win the Big 12 title this season. However, the Cougars have a couple of stiff tests coming up on the schedule. BYU will host No. 1 and undefeated Arizona in Provo on Monday night before heading to Lawrence to play No. 19 Kansas to close out the month of January.
Dybantsa and company also have three games against teams currently ranked in the top 10 on the schedule in February, so he will have plenty of chances to show out against top competition in the coming weeks. If he can keep stringing together performances like Saturday's, it will be hard not to take him first overall in the NBA Draft this summer.
