Anticipation is an attractive, beautiful thing. Disappointment will scare the mud off a shovel.
The former sat right in front of everyone in the comely form of the matchup of AJ Dybantsa vs. Darryn Peterson. What followed, the latter, as it turned out, epitomized disappointing, leaning toward downright unattractive, ugly even.
As Kevin Young put it, afterward: “I thought Richie Saunders was the best player on the floor.”
No offense to Saunders, but that’s not the way it was supposed to go.
The presumed two most talented and ballyhooed players — Duke fans keep your Boozers to yourselves — in the college game faced off against one another on Saturday afternoon, in front of network cameras, more than 30 NBA executives and scouts, and curious basketball fans everywhere.
These two stars were and are the betting favorites, in one order or the other, to be the first two picks in the coming NBA draft. Going in here, Peterson was first, Dybantsa second.
Going out? Hold it right there for a minute. Let’s not spoil this all quick like that. Dybantsa and Peterson would do plenty of that on their own.
Either way, this was a marquee showdown everyone eagerly salivated over, everyone thought they wanted to see. And so …
The setup.
Lights about as bright as they ever get cut straight through the Phog on this particular occasion, right there in an arena as historic as they ever get, shining down on … yeah, college basketball’s biggest names. No introductions, no descriptions, no explanations needed.
Ongoing evaluations and judgments, though, remained. That was and is the serious business for those aforementioned pro executives and scouts to wade through. Everybody else, it was figured, could sit back and enjoy two teenage marvels, two 19 year olds, separated in age by a couple of January dates a mere 12 days apart, as they engaged in their battle, compared their wares, their works and their wonders at raucous Allen Fieldhouse.
Oh, BYU and Kansas were on hand, too.
The game itself.
Reality here, at the onset, replaced excitement and expectation in a hurry, with the swing of Peterson’s hammer against the whimper of Dybantsa’s pain.
Fighting his way back from injury, the 6-5 Jayhawk guard drove to the basket, he kept his dribble alive, he manipulated defenders, he stopped and popped, he created space and shots, he learned in, he dusted 3s, he scored on ball, he scored off ball, he read the floor, he did everything you could want an explosive playmaker to do.
Kansas guard Darryn Peterson (22) attempts to get past BYU center Abdullah Ahmed, center, as BYU guard Richie Saunders (15) also defends during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, in Lawrence, Kan. (AP Photo/Colin E. Braley)
He made six of his first seven shots, and three of four from the line, totaling 18 first-half points. His team followed his lead, going up 53-33 at the break. He also had three steals at that juncture.
Then … nothing.
For some reason — injury or load management? — Peterson hit the bench and stayed there, never to return. And it wasn’t because the game was out of hand.
As has been BYU’s habit this season, the Cougars played like a bunch of blind men early on, betraying themselves at nearly every turn, missing shots, turning the ball over, showing up late on rotations, all to Kansas’ delight. And they got little help from their supposed star.
Dybantsa, coming off his best college performance against Utah sandwiched between his two worst showings against Texas Tech and Arizona, struggled some more. While Peterson was soaring, Dybantsa waddled around like a player who had no clue how to help. He didn’t put up his first shot — an attempt he missed — until nearly nine minutes in. He first bucket came four minutes thereafter. The 6-9 wing finished that first half with all of seven points.
Without him, his teammates couldn’t help themselves, either.
Slowly, they found a way, as has been their norm, in that second half. But Dybantsa wasn’t there with any splash or panache for the rescue. He didn’t play horribly, ending up with 17 points on 6-for-12 shooting, but other than drawing a whole lot of attention from Jayhawk defenders, he didn’t do much else. Not what was necessary for a road team in a hostile environment to survive against a quality opponent, let alone thrive.
“He was OK,” was the way Young put it.
OK? For a player like Dybantsa, OK is not OK.
“I thought he was holding the ball a little too much in the first half,” Young continued. “Thought it was a little better in the second half.”
Young said he didn’t want to “cry over spilt milk,” but, in so many words, he indicated that he thought Dybantsa got fouled more than he was awarded by the refs. “That’s life, you gotta keep playing.”
With Peterson out of commission and Dybantsa just kind of being a dude, it was left for others to make a show of what was on the floor.
Saunders did exactly that. The senior guard scored 33 points on 11-for-19 shooting, hitting six bombs and hauling 10 rebounds, and brought the Cougars back from that double-digit deficit to within four points late in the game. But BYU’s defense had too many lapses to finish its comeback. All told, Kansas, led by Bryson Tiller, shot 57 percent against the Cougars’ 45 percent, resulting in its 90-82 win.
BYU guard Richie Saunders (15) prepares to shoot a 3-point basket as Kansas guard Tre White (3) defends during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, in Lawrence, Kan. (AP Photo/Colin E. Braley)
The marquee matchup, then, sagged into reputations left unfulfilled, into names that were bigger than their games, games that on this Saturday were dimly backlit, flickering and fizzling, and then going dark. The Jayhawks won and BYU lost, bringing into question just how good the Cougars really are or aren’t.
Not even they seem to know for sure.
But what happened didn’t match the hype, not even close, leading to disappointment that left the shovel much cleaner than it might have been.