Sophomore guard Robert Wright III won an off-balance 3 over two Clemson defenders at the horn, sealing No. 10 BYU’s come-from-behind 67-64 win over Clemson at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. The shot was the exclamation point on the Cougars’ comeback; they trailed 43-22 at halftime, allowing Clemson to enter the break on a dazzling 21-0 run.
ROB WRIGHT WINS IT AT THE BUZZER 😱🚨@BYUMBB COMING BACK 🔥 pic.twitter.com/p9D3vwvGO8
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) December 10, 2025
Normally the player who hits the game winner gets all the credit. And Wright certainly deserves a lot of it. But without freshman sensation AJ Dybantsa, who played his best half of college basketball to date, BYU (8-1) would never have had a last-second shot at winning the game.
It was a remarkable turnaround for Dybantsa — the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2025 and one of the front-runners to be selected first overall in the 2026 NBA Draft — after a relatively lackluster first half. The 6-foot-4 forward scored just six points in the first half, including five in the first four minutes, while looking unimpressive against Clemson’s surge.
However, his effort in the second half could not have been better. En route to career highs in points (28), rebounds (nine) and assists (six), Dybantsa scored or assisted on 34 of BYU’s 45 points in the second half. Whether he was calling his own number or taking Clemson’s defense as a distributor out of the middle of the pick-and-roll, Dybantsa amply showed why NBA executives have been drooling over his talent and potential impact for years. His 22 points in the second half were more than Clemson had as a team (21).
Dybantsa extended his streak of 15-plus points games to start his career to nine, second-most all-time among Big 12 players behind former Oklahoma guard Trae Young (26 games).
AYO @AJ_Dybantsa 🤯
📺ESPN pic.twitter.com/DfcjDvBYQh
— BYU Men’s Basketball (@BYUMBB) December 10, 2025
Despite Dybantsa’s dominance in the second half, Clemson (7-3) never rolled over and never let BYU run away with the game. The Cougars regained a 55-54 lead with 3:17 to play — their first since it was 17-15 midway through the first half — only for Clemson, especially guard Dillon Hunter, to provide some heroics of his own. Hunter hit a top-of-the-key 3 with 17 seconds left that brought Clemson within 2, and after Wright missed the front end of another one-and-one, Hunter drove into the paint for a smart layup off the glass with 5.5 seconds left, tying the game at 64.
Then, after BYU coach Kevin Young had the Cougars advance the ball to midfield before a timeout was called — controversially using 4.2 of the remaining 5.5 seconds left in a tied game — it appeared the back-and-forth thriller was headed to overtime.
Until Wright happened, that is, completed the Cougars’ stunning comeback.
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