Utah Prep and AJ signing

Basketball
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Disclsimer I don’t care much who BYU signs and I don’t actually like basketball.

But reading this article on KSL In landing No. 1 prospect AJ Dybantsa, BYU basketball has planted a flag

I saw this blurb about Utah Prep Academy in Hurricane and that caught my attention.

So a school is created to be a glorified sports recruitment camp…the ownership and involvement here should be looked into for a variety of reasons. (Edited in response to the info below ).

AJ is a student there and while a student is given a ownership stake in the school that he attends that’s really a basketball and sports management business…

And then he signs with BYU where there is some interesting connections between the prep school and BYU and NIL…it’s a pipeline of money the beggars the imagination for a HS kid.

Am I reading this right? If so the implications go beyond the transfer portal and NIL in ways that boggle my mind.

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Plus, he is being paid $600,000 to play at that high school. I hadn’t realized that NIL had made it to the high school level.
College sports are changing so fast, nobody knows where it’s going to end up.

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Do you have a link to the article? Interested to read it

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I thought I linked it hmmm

This is just the KSL article you gave to dig up info on Utah Prep

In landing No. 1 prospect AJ Dybantsa, BYU basketball has planted a flag

Getting the link off the app was being funky

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Thanks.

I was just reading this article from the Trib that gets a bit more into the, shall we say, troubled reputation of this “school”.

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The whole thing simply stinks. Even as a fan, I don’t know how much I want to do things to continue this facilitation of “Child Professional Athletics” anymore.

Whatever happened to kids being allowed to be kids? College Sports wasn’t supposed to be a tool with a primary goal of creating professional athletes. It was a path to getting a college education that didn’t leave these young people saddled with debt while providing some entertainment and fun for the fans. In a lot of cases, it gave some kids opportunities to break away from an at risk life and help their families achieve something better - and I am talking about the kids who went to work in careers as something other than being professional athletes.

What we are seeing now is not that. Maybe it never was, it it sure as hell isn’t that now.

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There had always been a level of booster corruption but the degree has changed.

It’s not just equivalent.

We solved a broken arm by amputating all 4 limbs.

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I get making Ryan Smith a villain is very fashionable here, but this isn’t accurate.

When Smith bought RSL it came with the prep academy, but under NBA rules he can’t own that so it closed, costing everyone their job a.

It’s another BYU alum who owns and runs it.

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This entire model is unsustainable.

There will be a handful of schools (maybe 25, tops) with boosters/alums that have gobs of money who are willing to throw it at kids like this. Anyone else who doesn’t have that will simply fade away, and that likely includes Utah.

For all the success we’ve had over the years, that appears to be the reality unless something changes significantly with the current system. It sucks, and is a big reason why my interest in (waves around generally) all of this is fading quicker than I’d like.

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If you think any of my comments were made because they were fashionable that would be incorrect.

If there are elements of the $$ exchanges which were incorrect fine feel free to add details.

But I’m failing to see how that mitigates the stink on this or a growing number of deals. Or how it’s anything other than a perversion of education.

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The U of U has some ultra-wealthy donors too, the Huntsmans. Only they donate tens of millions to further cancer research and treatment.

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Smith has nothing to do with the school. He closed it when they bought RSL.

It was reopened by someone else and moved to Hurricane.

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Having lost both parents to cancer (and having both treated at the U), I’m grateful that they make that choice.

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Me too. My wife had cancer and benefitted from the Huntsmans. Puts things into perspective.

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The comments by AJ that he is going to BYU “because they are building something “ is pure agent speak—they aren’t building anything because just like Catchings & Demin (sp?) he will be there for 1 year to get paid top $$ & then go pro. ‘’
It would be so refreshing (but will never happen) if he just said I am going to the highest bidder & I could care less about who or what or where they are. Show me the money & I will show up for a year.

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I’m actually a little curious why this kid is bothering with a season of college ball to begin with. Can’t players come directly from high school to the NBA? Or has that rule been changed? (Disclaimer: I don’t follow the NBA at all)

If he’s viewed by pretty much everyone to be the first pick in the draft already, the risk seems to FAR outweigh the reward of playing a season at BYU (or anywhere). What if he gets hurt? What if it turns out he’s not really all that against higher competition? What if the rest of the team stinks and no one pays attention?

The only upside is that he can solidify that #1 pick status with a good season, but it seems like he pretty much has that in the bag already, no?

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In the past players could jump from high school right the to NBA (notable examples include Moses Malone, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, etc.) but at some point the NBA decided a player had to play one year in college and/or in Europe before they could enter the league.

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I think what you are thinking of is that some players have gone to Europe, Australia, or G-League (ignite) instead of college for a year, but they still have to be 1-yr post secondary school to get into the NBA. I think Ignite was setup to keep amateur status but get training? I also think they stopped once NIL came into play as these kids can make some $ while going to one year of college (if they really go to class, that’s another question).

This AJ will be the 8th highest basketball player in the state (including the Jazz)

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Seems like a nice bow to tie the circle of life together - BYUs sham 1984 national championship was the beginning of the end of collegiate athletics, and it feels like this signing and the sham ‘prep’ school situation is the end of the end.

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