{"id":83878,"date":"2025-08-15T04:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T04:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/83878\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T04:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T04:25:08","slug":"aj-dybantsa-reveals-his-only-goal-for-his-freshman-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/83878\/","title":{"rendered":"AJ Dybantsa reveals his only goal for his freshman season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">BYU Cougars incoming star AJ Dybantsa isn\u2019t hiding his desire to compete for the biggest piece of silverware in Division I basketball. The No. 1 prospect in the 2025 class wants to take his new team to new heights after joining them from Utah Prep.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">Dybantsa, 18, rejected traditional programs such as Alabama, Kansas and North Carolina to join BYU, and he\u2019s not planning to go to Provo just to be an attraction for fans. Fresh off a gold medal in the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup, the talented forward wants to translate that success into next year\u2019s NCAA tournament.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">There\u2019s only one thing he has in mind for his freshman season with the Cougars: winning the national championship.<\/p>\n<p>AJ Dybantsa has a clear goal for his freshman season\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">During a brief conversation with ESPN\u2019s Jorge Sedano at the 2025 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, Dybantsa expressed his desire to become a national champion with the Cougars.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/BUS_20250814_BUS_472470_AJ-Dybantsa-1-1024x576_219de5b6.webp&#038;width=1024&#038;height=576.webp\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" alt=\"AJ Dybantsa (7)\" class=\"h-auto\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-center mt-5 text-[14px] leading-[20px] font-normal\">AJ Dybantsa (7)<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">\u201cI think the only goal we\u2019ve got in mind is winning a national championship. We got to the Sweet 16 last year as a first-year coach (Kevin Young), so I think we only gonna go farther,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">This wasn\u2019t the first time he said he was aiming this high.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">\u201cNational championship that\u2019s our only goal,\u201d Dybantsa told draft analyst Krysten Peek in an interview. \u201cIf we fall short, it\u2019s a disappointing season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"break-word\">The Cougars were eliminated by Alabama in the Sweet 16 after beating VCU and Wisconsin. They have renewed expectations and with a player of Dybantsa\u2019s caliber, the season could be one to remember for BYU fans.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"leading-none\" href=\"https:\/\/bolavip.com\/en\/staff\/ecova\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/28922ba4-b8a7-4602-9c17-69523f2714ee.webp.webp\" alt=\"ernesto cova\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"rounded-full\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-[14px] leading-[20px] min-h-[72px] md:min-h-[52px] mt-[10px] font-authorSignatureDescription hidden md:block\">Ernesto Cova is a bilingual (English-Spanish) sports writer with over eight years of experience covering major leagues such as the NBA, NFL, MLB, College Basketball, and international soccer. He rejoined Bolavip US as a collaborator after initially contributing to the platform since its inception in 2020, where he also served as a sub-editor in 2023. Ernesto specializes in daily sports news, producing 100% original content that includes trade rumors, player and team rankings, and more. Before returning to Bolavip US, he contributed to Fadeaway World and The Cold Wire, with a primary focus on the NBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BYU Cougars incoming star AJ Dybantsa isn\u2019t hiding his desire to compete for the biggest piece of silverware&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[58355,402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-83878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-aj-dybantsa","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}