AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson are two of the best freshmen in the college basketball 2025-26 season. Everyone is excited to see both of them compete against each other. Despite extreme hype around BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson is ranked first to get picked in the 2026 NBA draft.
AJ Dybantsa, even before the start of his college career, has established a commanding NIL value. He is valued at $4.1 million, trailing only Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith, Miami QB Carson Beck and Texas QB Arch Manning. Kansas’ Darryn Peterson signed a substantial NIL deal with Adidas Basketball in 2023. Dybantsa and Peterson are well aware of the competition from each other for the upcoming season and the NBA draft in 2026. Darryn Peterson recently talked about his relationship with AJ Dybantsa.
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Basketball analyst Gary Parrish of CBS asked Peterson how the relationship between the two is.
“Obviously you’re not the only elite freshman in the Big 12. There’s another one at BYU, AJ Dybantsa. If you go one in the draft, a lot of people think he’ll go two, vice versa. We’ll settle that debate next June. How familiar are you with him? Are you guys friendly at all? What’s the relationship between you two guys because in some level you might be connected for the rest of your careers,” Parrish said.
Darryn answered, “No doubt. I’m familiar with him. We’ve been around each other for a couple of years now at camps and stuff. So personally I think when you’re around someone so much you eventually start to kind of build a relationship.”
“Obviously we are not like best friends but like off court, we hang with each other, we’re cool. But on court, super competitive and we want to kill each other, which is why I think our relationship is where it is.”
Darryn Peterson addresses leading mock drafts vs AJ Dybantsa
Parrish also mentioned how most mock drafts had placed Kansas’ star as a number 1 pick and above AJ Dybantsa. He asked how much that means to Peterson.
Darry had a modest answer. He said, “Obviously I’ll say it’s a goal of mine, but it’s not really something that I would say like is at the top of my mind all the time. Like I said before, winning will probably help my individual goals obviously but I’m just blessed to be in the position I’m in.”
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