Game Changers

AJ Dybantsa, BYU, and the Struggle for the Soul of Basketball

By: Matthew Bowman, Wayne LeCheminant

Narrated by: Thurl Bailey

In one of the most unlikely coups in college basketball history, a religious school in Utah signed basketball phenomenon AJ Dybantsa. He will play for Brigham Young University—hardly the sort of basketball powerhouse that typically attracts exceptional and non-Mormon players like him. Game Changers explores how BYU managed this stunning feat. A year before signing Dybantsa, the university lured coaching star Kevin Young from the NBA to run its basketball program. In the decade before, court rulings and institutional reform put money at the forefront of college sports in ways the American public had never seen. And for generations before that, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built a theological structure and institutional commitment to basketball that put the sport front and center at BYU.

Game Changers places Dybantsa in the context of this history and culture and explores the tensions in the sport. For Latter-day Saints and many other basketball fans, the sport is about personal discipline, character, and a commitment to success. But more and more, universities, the NCAA, and the professional leagues place money above everything else. These dual impulses have pulled the sport in general, and the church-owned BYU in particular, in opposite directions. The book reveals why Dybantsa decided to attend BYU and what he means to the sports world—in Provo, in the United States, and around the globe—as his career unfolds.

©2025 Signature Books (P)2025 Signature Books

A broad, deep over view of the state of basketball and its relationship to BYU past and present.

I liked most things about this book! It was a reasonably good overview of the history of basketball and what James Naismith's hopes for the game were and how things have evolved in the game up until the present. The authors do a good job of explaining basketballs introduction to the youth program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how it changed over time. The NIL and how it and the transfer came to be are explained well......and of course the stories of AJ Dybansa and Kevin Young are well told. The narrator, Thurl Bailey, is perfect for this basketball story.

Long time fan

Just the facts, written by an unbiased outsider. The author covered so many angles of basketball from its humble beginnings and the birth of the NCAA to lucrative contracts for college freshmen stars. As a long time BYU l fan, it kept my attention as the stories of players and coaches were woven in through the years. Everything that has led up to the exciting season we are seeing with AJ Dybantsa, and why he selected BYU.