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The NBA Draft Lottery will not be conducted until May, and the draft itself does not arrive until a month later, and there is no official date for either on the calendar. It is impossible not to anticipate these two occasions, though, when glancing at Saturday’s NCAA Division I basketball schedule and noticing the game set for 4:30 p.m. ET at Allen Fieldhouse.
Darryn Peterson vs. AJ Dybantsa.
Oops, sorry.
That was rude.
There will be at least a dozen other players involved when BYU visits Kansas. And they will matter to the result, and the result will matter to the Big 12 standings, with the two teams tied with Iowa State in the loss column behind Arizona, Houston and Texas Tech. And the standings will matter to the national picture, with Jayhawks and Cougars and all four in front of them seeded No. 4 or higher on the Bracket Matrix composite of online March Madness projections.
Matchups involving these sorts of talents don’t happen often in college basketball, though, because players as gifted as Peterson and Dybantsa don’t arrive every year. Or every couple years. Or maybe even every decade. The term “generational talent” was conceived for a reason, and it would appear each one may belong in that category.
“Yeah, they do, they both do,” a high-level NBA personnel executive told The Sporting News. “They’re both so talented, and they’re both so productive.”
As collegians in the 2006-07 season, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant never met on the court. LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett chose not to play in college. Tim Duncan never encountered anyone on his level while he grew his game at Wake Forest. Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning did not face each other at this level. Do we have to go all the way to Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird in the 1979 NCAA Championship, or might the Hakeem Olajuwon vs. Patrick Ewing title game in the 1984 fit the category?
American basketball has been relatively short on such prospects in the past 15 years. Anthony Davis looked every bit of it at Kentucky, and for long stretches in the league, though his body never has been as reliable as his talent. The Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards still might get there; he’s not even 25 and is up to nearly 30 points per game. Cooper Flagg is just getting started, but certainly starting beautifully.
Scouts whose teams are lottery-bound – we see you, Pacers, Wizards, Kings – will be viewing this occasion as a Super Bowl of sorts: the chance to see the players who might go No. 1 and No 2 in this year’s draft on the same floor. Many who’ve watched Peterson and Dybantsa, who’ve scouted them as draft prospects or covered their games in the media, contend these two are that kind of extraordinary.
“When you have a matchup of these two incredibly talented young men, it’s not so much the head-to-head,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla told SN. “It’s the magnitude of the game and the environment that will add to these two great players’ resumes.”
Cincinnati’s Oscar Robertson scored 56 points at Allen in an NCAA Tournament regional third-place game, still the building record. Wilt Chamberlain made his Kansas debut with 52 points and 31 rebounds in a home victory. Jayhawks legend Danny Manning lit up the building for 40 in February 1987. Playing for the Texas Longhorns, Durant scored 25 in the first half and went 5-of-5 from 3-point range before injuring his ankle and finishing with 32 in a narrow defeat.
Point is, Allen Fieldhouse is a building where legends not only have walked, they’ve flown.
Will Darryn Peterson play for Kansas against BYU?
Peterson is a 6-5, 205-pound guard originally from Canton, Ohio, whose high school career also took him to schools in West Virginia and California. He was the consensus No. 2 prospect in the high school class of 2025 and won a gold medal in the FIBA Americas U18 Championship in 2023. He is averaging 21.6 points for the Jayhawks, even though he’s been limited to 27 minutes per game because of persistent injury issues.
“I hope he plays,” Fraschilla told SN, noting that Kansas coach Bill Self has indicated he expects Peterson to be available for the pivotal BYU game.
His current injury is unrelated to the issues that impacted much of the pre-conference season for Peterson. He was bothered by hamstring and then cramping issues through a Jan. 6 overtime victory over TCU at Allen, but he stepped on an opponent’s foot in a victory at Colorado two weeks later. A fortunate break in the schedule has meant missing only one game since.
“I think he’ll play. I don’t know for a fact – I’m not a doctor – but I think he’ll play,” Self said after KU blew out rival Kansas State. “That game will obviously mean a lot to a lot of people. They’re terrific, and (ESPN's) GameDay will make it extra hyped. So I don’t see any reason that he couldn’t play.”
When on the court, Peterson has been an imposing offensive force. He has connected on 42 percent of his 3-point attempts and 56 percent of 2-pointers, and he’s also an 82 percent shooter at the free throw line.
His dynamism, his ability to drive to spots he prefers on the floor, to nail pull-up jumpers over opponents – the uncommon combination of his strengths has led many analysts to compare him to Lakers great Kobe Bryant.
“I use it behind closed doors to friends and stuff, I don’t put it out there that we’re comparing anybody to Kobe,” NBA draft analyst Jonathan Wasserman of Hoops HQ told SN. “Their style of play is similar; their size is similar. When you use Kobe, a lot of people are going to talk about the mentality and the killer instinct. We just haven’t seen it yet, because he’s too young. We don’t know how he’s going to act in the last two minutes of a playoff game.”
After battling cramps late in the TCU game, on a night when the Jayhawks struggled and had to rally to make it competitive, Peterson did draw a foul on a 3-point attempt and made all three foul shots to force OT. He scored 32 that night, even though he was unable to play the extra period.
“It’s been hard for people to get their heads wrapped around Darryn Peterson because he’s been hampered by the injury. It’s affected his ability to play the type of game he was reputed to have,” the NBA executive said. “So many people had seen him in high school and talked about him being one of the next great players in the NBA.
“If you’re looking at what dictates stardom in the NBA, it’s the combination of the ability to get your own shot and also make your teammates better, lift your teammates. For the most part, he’s shown those flashes, that those two things are well within his grasp. His body control, his explosion, his ability to play above the rim and above traffic – and also play around traffic, with speed, with change of direction. And he’s a very, very good shooter. He could be one of those guys that’s a high-volume 3-point shooter that does it at high efficiency.”
Peterson only has played 10 games, but he’s made multiple threes in every one. He’s had only three games where he’s fallen below a 38 percent conversion rate, and none where he hasn’t fired at least four times from deep.
“It’s scary, because it’s sacrilegious to compare somebody to Jordan or Kobe, but history tells us that in the draft we love the comparison because we can, in our mind’s eye, see what the ceiling is for a guy,” Fraschilla said. “I do think, as unfair as it may be for a guy his age, the ceiling is Kobe.”
MORE: How Travis Steele has directed Miami (Ohio) to perfect start
What sort of player is AJ Dybantsa?
Dybantsa is a 6-9, 210-pound forward originally from Brockton, Mass., whose high school career took him also to prep schools in California and Utah. He was the consensus No. 1 prospect in the 2025 high school class and won gold medals at the FIBA U17 World Cup in 2024 and the FIBA U19 World Cup last summer, where he also was named tournament MVP.
With the Cougars, he is averaging 23.6 points (first in Division I), 6.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists, connecting on 59 percent of his 2-point attempts and 32 percent from 3-point range. He scored 43 points in a rivalry victory over Utah. Although he’s scored more points than any player in the nation, 20 players have attempted more shots.
“He’s the guy, that when you’re playing Finland with the USA team and beating them by 40, he’s getting 12, 8 and 6. Because he’s making sure his teammates shine. That’s his personality,” Fraschilla said. “When it’s the gold-medal game, he’s the MVP. What I love about him this year, and I give (BYU coach) Kevin Young a lot of credit for this, I sense they told AJ early in his freshman year, even when we play Eastern Washington, you have to destroy these guys the way you did in the second half against UConn, or in the second half against Clemson at the Garden.
“I think he’s taken on this mentality that, ‘I’m going to try to destroy you,’ even though his personality is that when he can ease up, he wants to make sure his teammates shine. In my mind, if Kevin Garnett came back as a small forward, it would be AJ Dybantsa. Because when he really turns the heat up, he’s a competitive killer.”
Dybantsa has drawn some comparisons to Tracy McGrady because of similar size and build, and in part because there are so few players who fit a similar combination of size and agility. Dybantsa has shown, at an earlier age, a greater feel for playmaking. McGrady grew to be a ballhandler who averaged more than 5 assists in 8 seasons, but Dybantsa is that sort of player now.
“I love his footwork in the middle of the floor. It feels like he can get his shot off whenever he wants to,” Wasserman said. “Even inside the arc, the way he can elevate into a very high percentage shot for him, there’s not much you can do except hope he misses. He’s got a power forward frame but plays more like a 2-guard. That combination is going to translate into a lot of free throws. He’s a big transition weapon. And he’s one of those guys who once his confidence starts going …
“Shooting range is correctable. We see that all the time. And it’s not like he’s a bad shooter. He’s an incredible shot-maker. He just has to become a shooter. A shooter is more consistent; a shot-maker is somebody who can hit fallaways and pull-ups and over-the-shoulder stuff. He can do all that.”
MORE: No. 1 Arizona escapes in thriller over Dybantsa, BYU
Who should be the NBA’s No. 1 overall pick?
The identity of the first pick in the 2026 NBA Draft won’t be known until sometime in June, possibly the moment the name is announced by NBA commissioner Adam Silver. It could involve a lot of variables, from which team wins the lottery and what sort of player that organization might need or prefer to how much basketball Peterson is able to play as this college season continues toward the Final Four. It’s even possible the lottery winner could prefer Duke’s double-double machine, Cameron Boozer.
It probably won’t matter relative to the draft whether Darryn or AJ has the best evening Saturday, or whose team wins. (But it will matter to the players involved.)
The teams studying Peterson and Dybantsa will need to learn about their appetite for work. Talent separated Durant from everyone when he was 17 or 18, but what has led to two NBA titles, three Olympic gold medals and nearly 32,000 career points has been an unyielding desire to work at improvement. That he has earned nearly a half-billion dollars in NBA salary and still can be found in a gym on so many summer days is what has made him extraordinary – but it does not make him unique among the league’s greats.
“That just comes through the connections the front offices have with the people who’ve seen that player come up,” the NBA executive said. “You have to take faith that organizationally you can help put him in position to do that. The teams that are vying to be in that position will have done the work, but there’s a point in the pre-draft where you get the opportunity to meet the person, and I think it’s really hard to not present who you really are when you’re with someone three days in a row.”
Wasserman’s first mock draft in advance of 2026 listed Peterson as the first pick.
“I’ve been team Peterson for quite a bit now,” he said. “Obviously the injury throws somewhat of a wrench into the situation. If you throw that stuff aside, I think his game translates a little easier. I have an easier time picturing him – and, these are unbelievable prospects, so when we praise one guy, I’m not killing another guy – just the way Peterson moves, he doesn’t rely so much on strength.
“AJ has such an impressive physical profile and frame he can use it at this college level to get downhill and draw fouls and get himself easier buckets around the rim. I think the way Peterson goes about getting shots is going to translate a little bit easier to an NBA floor, particularly early on.”
It may be a tough choice for the team that picks first. It may be an easy choice.
It does seem, though, there is no wrong choice.
“If you’re asking me to make a choice, the question I have for you is: Do I have to? Because I’m not sure yet,” Fraschilla said. “I know the Wizards and the Jazz and the Nets – they’re compiling so much data on these guys.
“I honestly think it really could come down to what that team actually needs, as opposed to last year, it didn’t matter. You could have had James Worthy in his prime, and you were taking Cooper Flagg with the first pick. I couldn't tell you at this point in the season who I would choose. They've both shown they're capable of being the No. 1 pick."
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