Analysis: AJ Dybantsa made the game with UConn possible, then he nearly atoned for BYU’s early sins

BOSTON — Win or lose, Saturday night’s wild game between No. 3 UConn and No. 7 BYU at TD Garden in Boston was always going to be the AJ Dybantsa Game.

Without him, the game wouldn’t have been scheduled. The teams wouldn’t have met unless it was in the NCAA Tournament next spring. And the Cougars never would have run the parquet floor beneath the Boston Celtics’ 17 NBA championship banners 40 minutes from his home in Brockton, Massachusetts.

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And win or lose, the game Dybantsa made possible was going to help BYU’s seeding in the NCAA Tournament next spring by boosting its strength of schedule.

It is, after all, the first time a top-10 BYU team played another top-10 opponent since the height of Jimmermania in 2011.

TD Garden had one open date for a college game, an organizer said. BYU and UConn eagerly agreed. So did Fox Sports, which cleared out a college football night for a matchup this juicy, with each team fielding three players listed on ESPN’s Top 100.

BYU did lose Saturday, 86-84, after a furious, improbable, hair-raising comeback, fueled by full-court pressure and a bewildering array of defenses dialed up by BYU coach Kevin Young.

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But if you watched the game, you’ll always remember it as the Dybantsa Game for what the freshman did on the floor during the final 15 minutes.

The first half of his homecoming was a baptism by fire. Dybantsa struggled to four points during the opening 20 minutes, when he twice was called for traveling, cast up an airball and missed two free throws.

In the second half, he was a phoenix rising, twisting and floating above the Huskies, draining shots nobody else would.

“That’s as high a level of shot-making as you’re going to see in college basketball,” said UConn coach Danny Hurley. “He hasn’t been making the 3s, at least to start the year. He’s been a rim guy, but he had the whole bag going tonight.”

Hurley knows ball, too. His team is hunting a third NCAA title in four years, something only ever done by Kentucky (1948-51) and UCLA (10 titles in 12 years from 1964-75).

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After BYU fell behind 59-39, Dybantsa exploded for 21 points over the final 15 minutes. He drove left. He drove right. He spun into the lane, lifted, levitated and feathered home sweet shots.

He buried 3s from the top of the key. He drew fouls and made free throws, with his parents, Chelsea and Ace, on the front row next to the Fox Sports announcers. Ace wore a sleek royal blue suit.

It felt like he was trying to take over the game, but he said he was letting it come to him.

“It’s something I feel, just taking what they give me,” he said. “If they’re gonna force me middle, I was just gonna take the middle. I was not going to try to force the baseline. It’s the sauce I work on every single day at 6:30, so I was just trying to shoot those shots.”

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He admitted that playing in front of raucous 16,116 fans was different than when he played at TD Garden while a freshman at St. Sebastian’s School.

“I’ve played in NBA arenas before, but I haven’t played in one filled like this,” he said. “I just had to stay calm, stay poised.”

“Obviously, the talent is on full display,” Young said of his young star, “but what’s more impressive is how he goes about his business. I’ve been around some of the greatest players that this game has ever had, and they all have the same thing in common in terms of how they go about their approach and how much they’re a student of the game and how hard they want to be coached.

“I see a lot of similarities in his mentality, similar to the great guys I was very fortunate to coach in the NBA.”

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Dybantsa nearly covered the multitude of team-wide sins that marred the first 25 minutes, with the help of Richie Saunders (17 points), Robert Wright III (16 points) and Dawson Baker (12 points, including a splay-legged 3 that cut the deficit to two with 20.3 seconds left).

In fact, BYU had a chance to tie the game with 15 seconds left, but Wright lost his dribble when he tried to split defenders and drive while Dybantsa was double teamed.

The Cougars’ early troubles included missing their first 10 attempts from 3-point range for a second consecutive game.

Hurley’s hard-working Huskies ran BYU off the 3-point line, and he used his team’s superior size to punish the Cougars inside during the openings of both halves. Especially after BYU’s burly center, Keba Keita, left the game woozily after taking a shoulder to the head.

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Young said he didn’t have an update on Keita’s condition.

BYU also missed Kennard Davis Jr., arrested Thursday morning by Provo Police on suspicion of DUI. Davis made the trip with the team to Boston but didn’t dress. Young said he benched one of the team’s key defenders for a violation of team rules. The coach said the length of the suspension is to be determined.

Hurley took full advantage. Alex Karaban, Silas Demary Jr. and center Tarris Reed Jr. each scored 21 points.

“We could get paint with Silas (Demary Jr.) driving it,” he said. “We could get paint with him in the ball screen game hitting the roller because he’s tall. We can get paint because we’ve got great cutters. We could get paint because we got a center that’s as hard to guard as anyone in the country, one on one.”

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With 15 minutes left, the Cougars appeared dejected and listless.

That’s when Young turned up the heat. He injected fresh energy by calling for full-court pressure and various zone defenses. Even in man-to-man, the Cougars switched at times and stayed home at others.

Young credited his staff with some of the ideas in a game he said had a life of its own.

“In a game like that, man, when you feel like the whole world’s working against you, you just kind of have to … try to push the right buttons,” he said.

The former NBA assistant coach said the Dybantsa Game was a gift BYU didn’t get last year.

“This is still all new for me, like the whole college thing, right?” Young said. “Last year, we had no good games, like at all, to start the year. We were playing, respectfully, teams that weren’t that good.”

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He recalled how badly BYU stumbled when it hit the Big 12 schedule last year. The Cougars had to push to level up from a soft preseason schedule. Playing such a high-level game so early in the season can only help, he said.

Saunders had a similar takeaway born from Tuesday’s comeback win over Delaware and Saturday’s comeback loss.

“It’s frustrating to come up short like that,” he said, “but the one thing that I’ll take is that we’re not gonna stop, we’re not gonna give up, even when adversity hits and we’re down like that.”

Young pointed to the zones that arrested UConn’s incursions on the paint.

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“That’s a reference point we can use as we move forward,” Young said. “I think it’s really good for our group to have to execute different things, or whatever the case may be.

“Just to play in a heated game like that, I think, is really going to help us as we start to just navigate the rest of our year and particularly when we get to the latter part of the season.”

The game was put together by the organizers of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Series, who have known Dybantsa for years because it is two hours from Brockton.

Dybantsa played in several HoopHall high school tournaments, so the Hall of Fame watched his recruitment closely, said Greg Procino, vice president of external events and partnerships.

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“There’s some guys that are difference makers when they walk into college programs,” Procino said. “I would put him in that category, for sure.”

Both the organizer and Hurley said a great matchup with a great finish helps college basketball in a busy fall schedule when it is trying to compete with college football and other sports.

The Hall of Fame Series brought Cooper Flagg and Duke to Boston last year. Procino was thrilled to bring Dybantsa in a year later.

“That doesn’t happen that often in this neck of the woods where you got two elite New England players, like No. 1 one guys back to back, especially with those with personalities,” he said.

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Young said it was more than worth it for BYU.

“This is how you grow,” he said. “You go through the pressure cooker, you go through adverse times. It’s part of the season.

“You’ve got to learn from the good and bad, like Richie as an example. He was having a hard time making shots from the outside, so he put his head down and got to the rim a number of times, and really was trying to will his way to helping the team.”

More tests await.

BYU plays No. 24 Wisconsin on Friday at the Delta Center.