KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On the floor, AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson stand out in a crowd. It doesn’t take more than a few possessions to spot the superstar talents that have popped off the page since AAU basketball as 14- and 15-year-olds.
But Wednesday at Big 12 media day, days before they’ll make their much-anticipated college debuts, the two top contenders did their best to blend in. Peterson roamed around in his team-issued blue quarter-zip pullover and a fully buttoned polo, while Dybantsa let his million-dollar smile outshine the two diamond studs in his ears. Both stopped short of any bulletin-board comments about their NBA draft stock. Peterson even stopped before leaving the stage to snap a picture of the jumbotron, a sign of the 18-year-old still getting used to life in the spotlight.
Peterson and Dybantsa are each once-in-a-generation-type prospects, and they’ll hit the floor in the same conference: Peterson for a blueblood at Kansas, Dybantsa as the most-anticipated recruit in BYU history. And the stakes for their lone college season couldn’t be any higher, with the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft very much up for grabs and the two of them considered the favorites.
In high school, Dybantsa spent most of the time since he reclassified into the 2025 graduating class as the No. 1 player in his class, a product of his explosive ’23 summer when he put up huge numbers at the NBPA Top 100 Camp and Peach Jam. But the tide started to turn late in last year’s high school season when Peterson put on an epic performance in a showdown between his Prolific Prep team and Dybantsa’s Utah Prep. Peterson’s 61-point outburst in an 88–86 win that has racked up hundreds of thousands of YouTube views is already the stuff of legend, a showing that has left a lasting impression on talent evaluators across the country. Dybantsa? He scored 49 that day, if that sets the tone for what the back-and-forth might look like between these two elite prospects.
Peterson ended as the No. 1 prospect in 247 Sports’s rankings, while Dybantsa kept the No. 1 composite rank across the major services. The two figure to duke it out (along with other potential challengers) all the way until late June, setting the stage for a race to the top spot unlike many we’ve seen in recent college hoops memory. The drama of the 2022 draft between Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren and Jabari Smith Jr. was highly entertaining to watch play out, and this season’s showdown pits even higher-level prospects and maybe even more draft-night drama. The NBA season started Tuesday night, and those interested in tanking better start stacking those losses.
“I don’t know that I can remember in a high school class two players coming into this league [like this],” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “[Especially] in such a competitive high school class, because there’s other good players out there besides these two, that have the chance to be a first-team All-American-type guy.”
Gone is the Big 12’s double-round-robin schedule, a casualty of the expanded 16-team league. That means just one guaranteed meeting between Peterson and Dybantsa, set for Jan. 31 in Lawrence, Kans. A second meeting could happen in the Big 12 tournament in March should the bracket play out the right way. More NBA decision-makers will flock to that late-January showdown than any college game this season, especially if both players start the season at the rate most expect.
Peterson keeps a list by his TV of the biggest games on his Kansas schedule. On it? Games against some of the other top prospects who’ll play college hoops this season. He’ll play other top point guard Mikel Brown Jr. in an exhibition Friday at Louisville, projected top-five pick Cameron Boozer and Duke at Madison Square Garden in November and could see another in five-star Nate Ament with Tennessee at the Players Era Festival later that month. And yes, it’s safe to say the showdown with Dybantsa made Peterson’s list.
Dybantsa says he’s approaching the looming showdown a bit differently. In his eyes, it’s just another game.
“I ain’t circling it,” Dybantsa said. “I don’t know if he’s circling it, but I’m not.”
The two are at least friendly off the court, having won a gold medal together at the FIBA U16 Americas tournament in 2023. That team, which also featured Boozer and several other now-elite prospects, went 6–0 in the tournament and won by an average of 64 points per game (no, that’s not a typo). But there’s clearly an understanding between the two budding superstars of what’s to come and the cold reality that only one can claim the top spot next June.
“Regardless if you want to or not, when you’re around somebody so much, eventually y’all build a relationship with each other,” Peterson says “But relationships off court and on court are different. Off court, play the game, talk trash with each other, cool with each other, but on the court, we are trying to cut each other’s heads off.”
“We’re very competitive,” Dybantsa said of the rest of the class. “I think we’re one of the better freshman classes to come in, in my opinion. We’re friends off the court, but when we’re trying to get on the court, we’re going at it.”
That sentiment has been echoed privately by many NBA scouts. One told last summer he felt it was “the best class in a really long time,” and strong early college starts for Dybantsa (30 points in an exhibition vs. Nebraska) and Boozer (33 points, 12 rebounds in an exhibition vs. UCF) have done little to stymie NBA enthusiasm. Imagine three Cooper Flagg or Zion Williamson–level talents in one college hoops season … and two in the same league? That’s what the Big 12 will experience in 2025–26, and the yearlong battle between the two front-runners for the top spot in the draft is a story that will dominate what is annually perhaps the sport’s top conference.