By SAM LANCE
The recruitment of the No. 1 prospect in the 2025 class is heating up. A.J. Dybantsa, the 6-foot-9, 200-pound forward out of Utah Prep and the Oakland Soldiers Nike EYBL program, has cut his list and set official visits before a decision in February.
Dybantsa will officially visit Kansas State (Aug. 30-Sept. 1), Kansas (Sept. 6-8), North Carolina (Sept. 20-22), Alabama (Sept. 27-29), Baylor (Oct. 4-6) and BYU (Oct. 11-13). Dybantsa has already visited BYU unofficially and Auburn officially this past March. His father, Ace Dybantsa, said no more unofficials will be taken.
Before Dybantsa narrowed down his list, Ace was the one communicating with college coaches. Now, A.J. will have the opportunity to hear from them himself.
“That was the plan,” Ace told ZAGSBLOG in an exclusive interview. “He didn’t have to talk to 32 coaches. So as I told him from the get go, once you cut down the list, you’re going to start talking to these coaches. Because one of them is going to be your coach.”
With that, Ace broke down what he was hearing from each school before the list was cut. Of course, A.J. will now be taking the reigns of the recruitment.
Alabama: “I know Preston Murphy from the Expressions Days. He coached him at AAU. That’s how we got to know him. And we’ve just built the relationship. They can do what they did with Brandon Miller. They [Dybantsa and Miller] are pretty similar.”
Auburn: “Bruce Pearl is from Sharon, Massachusetts, 15 minutes away from where we live. We already visited Auburn. I got good vibes from him and gave it a shot.”
Baylor: “I mean it’s a great program. They won the championship a couple years ago. I like what they’re doing over there. And first of all I like the coach [Scott Drew]. So you can’t go wrong with that.”
BYU: “It’s everything run like an NBA program over there. So seeing what they’re going to have.”
Kansas State: “Jerome Tang. First off I like the name. I’m a big Wu-Tang fan. He just told me A.J. is going to play freely and have a good team around him. And I kind of like what he was saying. So we’re going to give them a look.”
Kansas: “Bill Self is a winner. Nothing else to say. I like his system. I spoke to coach [Kurtis] Townsend. I spoke to coach Self. And I like what they were saying. So I agreed to give them a shot.”
UNC: “I like the system that they run.”
Ace said he could “feel the vibes” of the coaches during the recruitment process and could tell if they really meant what they said or not.
“I had to pick some [schools],” Ace said. “I know I’m going to disappoint a lot of coaches. It is what it is.”
With no surprise, the No. 1 prospect still has NIL to think about.
“Let me just give you an example,” Ace said. “Say A.J.’s favorite school is Kentucky, for the sake of this argument. And Arkansas comes to us and says we have $10 million for you guys in NIL. Kentucky comes to us and says we only have $8 million for you. Guess where we’re going? We’re going to Kentucky. So just to tell you, yes, NIL is important. But it’s not the end of it.”
Currently, A.J. has a high school NIL deal signed with Nike. All of Dybantsa’s finalists are Nike or Jordan sponsored programs besides Kansas, an Adidas school. Ace said the branding of programs will not affect the decision “at all.”
“The Nike deal ends in June,” Ace said. “So by the time we go to college, he’s going to be a free agent.”
A.J. will make his final decision sometime in February. A specific date has not been set yet.
Most recently, the Dybantsa’s traveled to Shanghai with Utah Prep. They played in the Future Stars Championship hosted by the Shanghai Sharks. In addition to Utah Prep there was a team from Canada, Australia, Serbia and Japan, as well as three Chinese teams in the Sharks, the Chinese national team and another local Chinese team.
Utah Prep won the tournament and Dybantsa was named MVP.
Follow Sam Lance on Twitter Follow Adam Zagoria on Twitter Follow ZAGSBLOGHoops on Instagram And Like ZAGS on FacebookAJ Dybantsa went CRAZY in China with his new squad 😤🔥
— BallerTV (@BallerTV) August 13, 2024
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