An 11-seed with a 19-win season and a Lithuanian sophomore nobody outside Austin was talking about just walked into the NCAA Tournament and knocked out one of college basketball’s most electrifying freshmen. That’s March for you.
No. 11 seed Texas defeated sixth-seeded BYU 79-71 on Thursday in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, ending a season — and possibly a college career — for AJ Dybantsa, the nation’s leading scorer. The Longhorns, who had to survive a First Four game just to get here, did it behind a performance from center Matas Vokietaitis that BYU simply had no answer for. The win sends Texas to the West Regional on Saturday, where they’ll face either third-seeded Gonzaga or No. 14 seed Kennesaw State.
Vokietaitis Takes Over Early
The story of the first half was almost comically one-sided. Vokietaitis, a sophomore from Lithuania who came into this tournament with relatively little national fanfare, finished the opening 20 minutes with 15 points on 6-for-10 shooting and 11 rebounds — matching, by himself, BYU’s entire team rebounding total for that period. BYU coach Kevin Young didn’t sugarcoat it afterward. “We did a much better job in the second half,” he said, “but it was super disappointing that he basically manhandled our team in the first half.”
By the time the halftime buzzer sounded, Texas led 46-37, punctuated by a Tramon Mark three-pointer from the corner that was equal parts dagger and exclamation point. The Longhorns had jumped out to a 10-4 lead early, and BYU’s only lead of the entire game — a brief 21-20 edge on a Robert Wright III layup — lasted about as long as it takes to report it.
Vokietaitis finished with 23 points and 16 rebounds. For a team that wasn’t even supposed to be in the first round, that’s the kind of performance that makes bracket-watchers do a double take.
Dybantsa Was Brilliant. It Didn’t Matter.
Here’s the painful part for BYU fans: AJ Dybantsa was extraordinary. He played every single minute of the game and finished with 35 points — just two shy of tying BYU’s NCAA Tournament single-game scoring record, held jointly by Danny Ainge and Jimmer Fredette. Two points. That’s the margin between a historic footnote and a loss.
When Texas stretched its lead to a seemingly insurmountable 68-51 with 11:08 remaining — after a goaltending call on Dybantsa, of all things — the freshman turned around and scored eight consecutive points himself to make it 68-59. That’s not a team rally. That’s one 18-year-old refusing to let go. BYU eventually cut it to 75-71 on an Aleksej Kostic three-pointer with 1:12 left, but Texas sealed it at the free-throw line and that was that.
Dybantsa, who led the nation in scoring at 25.3 points per game, is widely projected as a candidate for the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft if he decides to leave school. The question of whether Thursday’s loss was the last time he’ll wear a BYU uniform hung over the post-game like a fog. Still, Dybantsa himself seemed at peace with his choice to come to Provo. “I love this place,” he noted after the game. “I’m happy I chose here, I definitely made the right decision. As far as the season, it’s tough dealing with adversity, but I’d rather do it with nobody else.”
Mark and the Longhorns Keep Finding Ways
Texas didn’t just win this game — they’ve now won two in four days, and the second one wasn’t exactly low-stakes. Mark added 19 points against BYU, continuing a run of clutch play that included his fadeaway jumper from just inside the arc with 1.1 seconds left to beat N.C. State 68-66 in the First Four on Tuesday. That’s two game-defining moments in one week for a kid who sounds almost bored by the pressure. “The last-second shots that I get, I feel comfortable and they’re going in,” he told reporters. “That’s all I can say.”
Coach Sean Miller has built something quietly sturdy in Austin — a team that, at 19-14, probably didn’t inspire a lot of confidence on Selection Sunday. But resilience, he said, is the word that defines this group. “As we entered this tournament in Dayton, I think all of us really came to grips with — let’s go out playing at the highest level we can, sticking together,” Miller explained. It’s a simple philosophy. It’s also working.
What’s Next
Texas now turns its attention to Saturday’s West Regional matchup against either Gonzaga or Kennesaw State. The Longhorns are still an 11-seed. They’re still an underdog. And at this point, that seems to suit them just fine.
As for BYU, the program finishes at 23-12, and the future of its most talented player remains unwritten. Dybantsa gave everything he had on Thursday night — 35 points, 40 minutes, a record almost broken. Sometimes that’s not enough. That’s the other thing March will do to you.
