In the heating-up battle for Utah Prep forward and prime UNC basketball recruiting target AJ Dybantsa, who ranks No. 1 overall on the 247Sports 2025 Composite, Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang appears to have benefited a bit from the fact that his last name makes Dybantsa’s father think of hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan.
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“First off, I like the name,” Ace Dybantsa previously explained to ZAGSBLOG before he and his family toured Kansas State this weekend, marking AJ Dybantsa’s first senior-year official visit. “I’m a big Wu-Tang fan. He just told me AJ is going to play freely and have a good team around him. And I kind of like what he was saying. So, we’re going to give them a look.”
As shown in the picture below, which Adam Zagoria posted courtesy of AJ Dybantsa’s father, Ace Dybantsa even sported a purple Wu-Tang shirt while the Wildcats’ highly anticipated visitor was on the field ahead of the Kansas State football team’s 41-6 win over UT Martin on Saturday.
And here’s @ADybantsa with his folks and head coach Jerome Tang on his visit to @KStateMBB https://t.co/pABQs9XCj3 pic.twitter.com/e87B2n8IsM
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) September 1, 2024
The 6-foot-9, 200-pound sensation, looking to wait until February to end his recruitment, is down to a top seven of UNC, Kansas State, BYU, Baylor, Alabama, Auburn, and Kansas.
He’s scheduled five more official visits across the next six weeks, including a trip to Chapel Hill to check out the UNC basketball program on Sept. 20-22.
For now, no insiders have entered a 247Sports Crystal Ball prediction for the AJ Dybantsa race. Presumably, all seven finalists remain in play.
