Boston • What started as a homecoming briefly turned into a heckling, and ended in a heartbreak for AJ Dybantsa.
The No. 1 player in the country, who grew up just 20 minutes down the road from TD Garden, returned home and nearly mounted a 20-point comeback against No. 3 UConn on Saturday night.
Instead, BYU fell to the Huskies 86-84. Dybantsa led the charge with 25 points — 21 in the second half — and a level of shotmaking that UConn coach Dan Hurley called the best in the country.
“That is as high of a level of shot making as you are going to see in college basketball,” Hurley said. “He had the whole bag going tonight.”
Dybantsa’s Boston return, at least for the first half, looked like a nightmare. Hurley called it a “sh--show” and then caught himself, saying it was just a “mess.”
The harsher words were probably more apt in this scenario.
In front of a crowd eager to show Dybantsa why leaving Massachusetts for Provo was a mistake, UConn confused BYU’s star. Hurley brought pressure from every direction and cut Dybantsa off any time he thought about driving to the lane.
For a team that had handled defensive pressure well this year, BYU looked flummoxed early against the Huskies. Dybantsa was 1-of-6 from the field with two turnovers.
Young was so stunned he sat his star as the arena happily chanted “overrated” on repeat.
“Their pressure bothered us, which surprised me a little bit, because I think we’re a hard team to pressure,” Young said.
And on defense, BYU wasn’t much better. UConn bullied the Cougars inside with 42 points in the paint. Young tried zone and trapping in the half-court. He experimented with the press and subbed in every lineup he could.
“We got pretty deep in the defensive bag, and we were throwing pretty much everything at them,” Young said. “My staff did a good job of keeping fresh ideas about the full court pressure, which allowed us to just muck the game up. Sometimes you’ve got to do that.”
But nothing truly worked until Dybantsa took control with his offense.
With UConn guarding against the three with a lead, Dybantsa got the lane and went to the free throw line. He banged midrange jumpers and turnaround fades. He hit threes in transition and spun into easy points.
With the game in the balance with 30 seconds to play, Dybantsa isolated against UConn’s best defender, Silas Demary Jr., and buried a three over his outreached hand. It cut the UConn lead to just a possession — the closest it would come.
“Quite honestly, again, I don’t know a lot of players who are going to make the degree of difficulty shots and isolation, one-on-one, that guy was making out there,” Hurley said.
Dybantsa finished 7-of-8 from the field in the second half and forced his way to the line three times. He played all but two minutes.
“His first half was a mess. And for him to be able to put that behind him, back home, and put on that second-half performance — that was as good as you will see from a freshman,” Hurley said.
Dybantsa, who was recruited by UConn, spoke with Hurley after the game. And the Huskies coach told the Cougars’ star about his film from the scrimmage against Nebraska, where he had 30 points but something was missing.
“Sometimes you watch these [top prospects] and how they come into college. You can see the entitlement on film. Not guarding, not being about the team,” Hurley said.
“And so you’re in the lead up [to tonight] watching the film, and I think maybe in the Nebraska scrimmage, there were a couple possessions where he was leaking a little bit [instead of playing defense], not getting on the glass,” Hurley continued. “I’m watching the evolution from game to game to tonight, and this guy’s out there guarding, playing with a level of desperation to win the game.”
Hurley called it “refreshing to see” from Dybantsa.
BYU wasn’t able to overcome the Huskies on the road. It didn’t help that the Cougars were playing without two of their starters, Kennard Davis and Keba Keita, who went out in the second half with a concussion.
But the one player Young isn’t too worried about showing up is the player who made his homecoming into a game, when he could have easily rolled over.
“They could have walked out of here and lost by 20, easily,” Hurley said. “But they dug their heels in. Their coach showed their culture. They have the chance to win championships.”