BYU’s AJ Dybantsa was named the Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year on April 4 during ESPN’s College Game Day.
The award recognizes the top small forward in college basketball and is part of the Starting Five, a set of honors given to standout players at each position. Dybantsa is the first player from BYU to win any of these awards since their inception, with four positions added in 2015 and the Bob Cousy Award for point guards starting in 2004.
Dybantsa, a freshman from Brockton, Massachusetts, won over finalists Thomas Haugh (Florida), Mlian Momcilovic (Iowa State), Nate Ament (Tennessee), and Dailyn Swain (Texas). He becomes only the second consecutive freshman to receive this honor. Previous winners include Cooper Flagg from Duke and Dalton Knecht from Tennessee.
This season, Dybantsa led all Division I players with an average of 25.5 points per game, scoring a total of 894 points—the second-most in BYU history and third-most by a freshman nationally. He maintained shooting percentages of 51.0 percent from the field, 33.1 percent from three-point range, and 77.4 percent on free throws. He reached double figures in all 35 games played for BYU this season and had eight games scoring at least thirty points as well as two forty-point performances.
Dybantsa was also voted Big 12 Freshman of the Year by conference coaches after averaging nearly twenty-six points along with more than six rebounds and almost four assists per game during league play. Notably, he broke BYU’s freshman single-game scoring record with forty-three points against Utah on January 24 at Marriott Center.
He achieved one of only two thirty-point triple-doubles in Big Twelve history—scoring thirty-three points with ten rebounds and ten assists against Eastern Washington—and set a new conference tournament scoring record previously held by Kevin Durant by totaling ninety-three points including forty against Kansas State.
