2025-26 Men's College Basketball Freshman of the Year Rankings
It has been the Year of the Freshman in men's college basketball, with Duke's Cameron Boozer and BYU's AJ Dybantsa entering play on Wednesday ranked first and second, respectively, in the nation in points per game.
It's so much more than just that dynamic duo, though. And now that we're knee-deep into the 2026 portion of the schedule, it only feels right to feature 26 players in this ranking of the National Freshman of the Year candidates.
We'll only actually rank the top 10, but we're also highlighting 10 honorable mentions, as well as six first-year players from off the beaten path, i.e. outside the five major conferences.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics are current through the start of play on Thursday, Jan. 8.
Mid-Major Names to Know
1 of 12
You might already be routinely watching the freshmen with lottery-pick potential, but here are six much more under-the-radar names who would be worth considering if there were an award for best freshman from outside the power conferences.
Tomislav Buljan, New Mexico
12.2 PPG, 9.5 RPG, 1.2 APG
Two years and quite a few dollars ago, JT Toppin averaged 12.4 points and 9.1 rebounds per game as a freshman at New Mexico. In Buljan, the Lobos have another potential star big man on their hands. He went for 19 points and 21 rebounds in a win over Mississippi State and has already posted six double-doubles.
Joel Foxwell, Portland
13.7 PPG, 7.4 APG, 4.2 RPG, 1.3 SPG, 34.4% 3PT
Portland might be the worst team in the WCC, but don't blame its freshman point guard, who has one of the highest assist rates in the nation. In the Pilots' Dec. 30 loss to Santa Clara, Foxwell had 20 points and 15 assists. He also had 15 assists two weeks prior in a win over Kent State, and has now reached 20 points on five occasions.
Ace Glass III, Washington State
15.5 PPG, 3.2 RPG, 2.1 APG, 35.8% 3PT
Another lead guard out of the WCC, Glass broke onto the scene with his 40-point performance in the Maui Invitational semifinal loss to Arizona State, incredibly doing so on just 14 official field-goal attempts, shooting 6-for-9 from distance and 16-for-18 at the free-throw line. Games against Saint Mary's and Gonzaga in the next seven days could be quite the opportunity to make some more noise.
Larry Johnson, McNeese
16.7 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 1.3 APG
Johnson was a borderline top 50 recruit in last year's class, but he redshirted at Creighton before landing in the transfer portal and opting to keep McNeese relevant even with Will Wade out of the picture. He couldn't save them in the 112-71 loss to Michigan, but his 18 points and eight rebounds were massive in Monday's two-point win over Stephen F. Austin.
Kevair Kennedy, Merrimack
16.2 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 3.9 APG, 1.6 SPG
Listed at 6'2" and 165 pounds, Kennedy is built like a guy who just wants to launch threes, but he's wired like a wrecking ball who wants to get into the paint before either finishing through contact or finding the open man. He's averaging nearly 12 free-throw attempts for every three-pointer he tries. And while Merrimack has won seven of its last eight games, Kennedy has averaged 37.1 minutes, 18.9 points, 5.0 assists and 1.8 steals.
Alex Wilkins, Furman
16.9 PPG, 5.1 APG, 2.3 RPG
Wilkins darn near leads the nation in percentage of possessions used, as everything that Furman does runs through this 6'5" point guard. He has yet to record a double-double, but he has scored at least 20 points in six of the Paladins' last 11 games and has tallied at least seven assists on six occasions this season.
10 Honorable Mentions
2 of 12
'Stars Impacted by Injury' Tier
Darryn Peterson, Kansas (22.5 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 2.2 APG, 43.2% 3PT, 6 games)
Mikel Brown Jr., Louisville (16.6 PPG, 5.1 APG, 3.0 RPG, 10 games)
Braylon Mullins, Connecticut (11.3 PPG, 3.4 RPG, 1.4 APG, 10 games)
With both Peterson and Brown, it's easy to see why they'll both be lottery picks—when their respective chronic hamstring and back injuries allow them to take the court. They've combined to play fewer minutes than a lot of the top freshmen, though, and it's difficult to consider either one a serious threat for national freshman of the year when they've missed so much time.
Mullins missed the first six games with an ankle injury and has simply been hit or miss since making his debut. For what it's worth, Jayson Tatum was in a similar boat back in 2016-17 at Duke, missing the first month with a foot injury and going through nearly two months of oscillating great/mediocre nights before really locking in. That isn't to say Mullins is the next Tatum, but perhaps he could follow a similar only-season-of-college-basketball arc.
'Not the Best Freshman on Their Team' Tier
Koa Peat, Arizona (14.4 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 2.9 APG)
Chris Cenac Jr., Houston (9.1 PPG, 7.7 RPG)
Meleek Thomas, Arkansas (15.3 PPG, 3.4 RPG, 2.7 APG, 1.5 SPG, 37.0% 3PT)
Five games into Arizona's season, Peat was clearly the most valuable freshman on that team. But after a slow start, Brayden Burries has arguably blossomed into the bigger star. Similar to Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard at Kentucky two years ago, the title of "Best Freshman for the Wildcats" might bounce back and forth throughout the season. Burries holds the edge for now, though.
For the other two, it's not particularly close. Cenac and Thomas have taken a backseat to Kingston Flemings and Darius Acuff Jr. on their respective teams. Heck, when Houston and Arkansas squared off last month, the two brighter stars combined for 48 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds while Cenac and Thomas had a combined line of 16 points, eight rebounds and one assist.
'Nate Ament' Tier
Nate Ament, Tennessee (14.7 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 2.6 APG, 1.5 SPG)
A likely top-five pick who arguably hasn't been a top-10 freshman and who doesn't neatly fit into any of the other buckets here, Ament is a bit of an enigma who has struggled or vanished in most of Tennessee's big games.
He's shooting 31.3 percent from the field and 25.0 percent from three-point range in six opportunities against "Tier A" competition, per KenPom. In Saturday's loss to Arkansas, he was held without a point or rebound for nearly 14 minutes in the second half while a two-point Tennessee lead turned into a 13-point deficit. But he's clearly gifted and could be one big performance in a big game away from crashing the top five.
'Virginia's Trifecta of Freshmen' Tier
Johann Grünloh, Virginia (8.5 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 2.6 BPG)
Chance Mallory, Virginia (10.8 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 3.4 APG, 2.0 SPG, 38.6% 3PT)
Thijs de Ridder, Virginia (16.4 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 1.4 APG, 40.0% 3PT)
As far as 247 Sports was concerned, Virginia didn't even have a top 25 recruiting class this year. Mallory was almost a top-50 player in the class, while neither the German Grünloh nor the Spanish de Ridder was regarded by Hoops HQ as one of the seven best international acquisitions just in the ACC.
All three have been huge, though, in putting UVA back on the national radar after a couple of down years. Grünloh is the 7'0" force in the paint, leading the team in both rebounds and blocks per game. Mallory has been a solid weapon on offense and an elite defender, leading the ACC in both steal percentage and defensive box plus/minus. And de Ridder has been the go-to scorer and the best rebounder outside of Grünloh.
Unless Virginia surges into the mix as a top 10 team, it's unlikely that any of these three will come to be regarded as a top 10 freshman. But this has become easily a top-five freshman class as far as collective impact goes.
10. Hannes Steinbach, Washington
3 of 12
Season Stats: 18.2 PPG, 11.2 RPG, 1.8 APG, 1.0 SPG, 38.9% 3PT
MVP Performance: 24 points, 16 rebounds, three assists, 2-3 3PT at USC (Dec. 6)
Hannes Steinbach has been a sensation for the Huskies, nearly leading the nation in rebounds per game while blossoming into a likely lottery pick.
In the grand scheme of the 2025-26 college basketball season, though, is Washington going to matter enough for Steinbach to even win Big Ten Freshman of the Year?
Or can he possibly ascend to the level of a Ben Simmons, winning USBWA National Freshman of the Year even while his team misses the NCAA tournament?
On both fronts, the answer is "probably not," which is why this double-double machine merely checks in at No. 10 on this ranking.
That said, Washington hosts Michigan next Wednesday. And if Steinbach goes off for another 24 and 16 type of night against that elite frontcourt while the Huskies pull off an upset that rattles this season to its very core, things would change in an instant.
9. Tounde Yessoufou, Baylor
4 of 12
Season Stats: 18.0 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 2.3 SPG, 2.0 APG, 30.0% 3PT
MVP Performance: 28 points, eight rebounds, six assists, two blocks, two steals vs. Southern (Dec. 21)
Tounde Yessoufou has put on some clinics against irrelevant competition.
That MVP performance against Southern came in a Quad 4 game. Same goes for the 27 points against Sacramento State and his 24-point season debut against UT Rio Grande Valley. And his recent 28-7-6-5 line in a 124-61 win over D-II Arlington Baptist was a real padding-the-video-game-stats-on-rookie-mode sort of afternoon.
In the games in which Baylor actually needs him to shine, though, he has mostly been held in check, yet to be named KenPom Game MVP against a KenPom top 250 foe.
The Big 12 opener at TCU was a chance for him to change that narrative, even against what is decidedly not one of the league's top six teams. Instead, it was his worst game of the season in a tough loss that dropped the Bears down onto the bubble.
The double-edged sword for Yessoufou is that he'll get to go mano e mano with the likes of Kingston Flemings (twice), Brayden Burries, AJ Dybantsa and (if he's healthy) Darryn Peterson over the course of the next two months. If he's awesome on those nights, the duds against TCU, Washington and Creighton will become easy to ignore.
8. Ebuka Okorie, Stanford
5 of 12
Season Stats: 22.6 PPG, 3.6 RPG, 3.1 APG, 1.6 SPG, 33.3% 3PT
MVP Performance: 31 points, six assists at Virginia Tech (Jan. 7)
Even more so than Steinbach, Ebuka Okorie has exploded into this conversation out of seemingly nowhere.
He wasn't a top-100 recruit, per 247 Sports, and Stanford was barely a top-100 team to begin the season, per KenPom. Penn State's Mason Blackwood was in a nearly identical spot, and he has 19 points in total national anonymity thus far this season.
But Okorie scored at least 17 points in each of his first seven games before bookending Christmas with consecutive 30-point performances against Colorado and Cal St. Northridge.
Despite missing two games in mid-December, Okorie has already been named the KenPom Game MVP 10 times in 14 games, which is almost the most in the country.
Like Steinbach, though, we're left to wonder whether the team will be relevant enough for the individual to matter in this race, but with positively massive opportunity on the horizon.
Stanford's next three games are against Virginia, North Carolina and Duke. We've already discussed UVA's trifecta of freshmen, and you better believe UNC's Caleb Wilson and Duke's Cameron Boozer are forthcoming on this list. If Okorie steals the show in those games, giddy up.
7. Brayden Burries, Arizona
6 of 12
Season Stats: 15.1 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 2.5 APG, 1.8 SPG, 33.8% 3PT
MVP Performance: 28 points, seven rebounds, two assists at Alabama (Dec. 13)
As noted in the honorable mentions, Brayden Burries only recently surpassed Koa Peat as the alpha freshman at Arizona.
Five games into the season, Burries was averaging 7.8 points with a 39.3 effective field-goal percentage, and he had a sub-70 O-rating in each of the games against Florida, UCLA and UConn. Heading into the December battles with Auburn and Alabama, it sure felt like he was playing for his starting job, as reserves Anthony Dell'Orso and Dwayne Aristode were both providing considerably more value.
In the first nine games after that slow start, however, Burries averaged 18.8 points with a 64.3 effective field-goal percentage, transforming from a guy who couldn't hit water in the ocean into a near unstoppable scorer at all three levels. He has also been a real asset on the defensive end.
All 10 of those games were blowout wins for Arizona, so I suppose we'll see how Burries fares the next time things get tight. But it bodes well that he was almost single-handedly the reason Arizona ran away from Alabama in the second half of that marquee victory.
6. Keaton Wagler, Illinois
7 of 12
Season Stats: 15.4 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 3.8 APG, 40.6% 3PT
MVP Performance: 23 points, five assists, two offensive rebounds at Ohio State (Dec. 9)
In November, Keaton Wagler averaged a solid 17.2 points and 2.8 assists against no-name competition, but managed just 7.3 and 0.7, respectively, against Texas Tech, Alabama and UConn. Between that and the highly touted Mihailo Petrovic beginning to make an impact after missing the first four games, it kind of felt like Wagler entered December on a short leash, similar to Burries at Arizona.
But in a huge win over Tennessee (in Nashville), Wagler went for 16 points with eight rebounds, five assists and no turnovers. Three days later, he had the game against Ohio State noted above.
Throw in the 22-point MVP performance in the rout of Missouri and the points-assists double-doubles against Nebraska and Southern and Wagler averaged 18.2 points, 6.8 assists and 5.2 rebounds in December, shooting 50 percent (17-for-34) from three-point range in those five games.
To help put those numbers in perspective, Kasparas Jakucionis averaged 20.2 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.4 assists for Illinois last December while becoming the do-it-all star who in early January looked like the top challenger to Cooper Flagg for National Freshman of the Year.
This year's crop of elite freshmen is simply more loaded, but the Illini's breakout star is very much in the conversation for top five.
5. Darius Acuff Jr., Arkansas
8 of 12
Season Stats: 19.9 PPG, 6.2 APG, 2.9 RPG, 43.2% 3PT
MVP Performance: 29 points, four assists, three rebounds vs. Tennessee (Jan. 3)
If you've ever wondered what it would have looked like if Dennis Smith Jr. had been buttressed by a decent supporting cast for his one season at NC State, Darius Acuff Jr. might be the answer.
Take out the 54-point win over Jackson State in which he didn't bother to break a sweat and Acuff is averaging 20.4 points and 6.4 assists per game, with at least 12 and four, respectively, in each contest to date.
In fact, in seven games against "Tier A" competition on KenPom, Acuff has averaged 22.3 points and 7.0 assists, willing the Razorbacks to victories over Tennessee, Texas Tech, Louisville and Ole Miss, while at least giving them a shot in the losses to Houston, Duke and Michigan State.
He's still a borderline lottery pick because his defense is a major question mark/red flag. But when you can shoot 43 percent from three-point range for the year while going for 16 and 6 against the Spartans, 29 and 4 against the Volunteers and 27 and 7 against the Cougars, who needs defense, right?
4. Caleb Wilson, North Carolina
9 of 12
Season Stats: 19.3 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 2.7 APG, 1.5 BPG, 1.4 SPG
MVP Performance: 20 points, 15 rebounds, three blocks, two assists vs. Ohio State (Dec. 20)
Behind Cameron Boozer as the clear No. 1, it's really a three-way tie between Caleb Wilson, Kingston Flemings and AJ Dybantsa in the race for second place.
That's not how rankings work, though, and frankly any iteration of the trio would've felt like disrespect to the player who landed at No. 4. But because Wilson was less than spectacular (but still solid) in Saturday's loss to SMU—13 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals—he temporarily draws the short straw.
That said, he has been a rim-rattling, shot-blocking, double-double machine who entered that loss on a streak of six consecutive games with at least 20 points. Wilson has also scored at least 13 points in every game this season and has tallied at least seven rebounds in each contest since only grabbing four in the season opener.
He was unstoppable in the early win over Kansas (24 points), everywhere in the road win over Kentucky (15 points, 12 rebounds, six assists) and had the game-saving block at the end of the win over Ohio State.
February 7.
March 7.
That's when Wilson will get his chances to prove head-to-head that he is even better than Boozer.
3. Kingston Flemings, Houston
10 of 12
Season Stats: 16.1 PPG, 5.0 APG, 3.3 RPG, 2.1 SPG, 42.6% 3PT
MVP Performance: 23 points, five assists, three rebounds, one block vs. Texas Tech (Jan. 6)
In Houston's final game of the Players Era Festival, Kingston Flemings was held to one point in 22 minutes played against Notre Dame.
But that little guy?
I wouldn't worry about that little guy.
Because outside of that dud—in what was his third game against a power-conference foe in the span of less than 48 hours—Flemings has been maybe the most cold-blooded player in the entire country.
He certainly was on Tuesday night against Texas Tech, scoring nine points in the final two minutes and 10 seconds, including the dagger triple with 30 seconds left that more or less sealed the win for the Cougars.
For a couple of hours there, he was tied with Cameron Boozer for the national lead in KenPom Game MVPs, but Flemings broke that tie with his 11th—which includes all five of Houston's games against "Tier A" competition, in which he has averaged 22.0 points and 5.2 assists.
Again: cold-blooded.
Flemings has also been doggone good on the defensive end of the floor, including eight steals in the early December win over Florida State.
2. AJ Dybantsa, BYU
11 of 12
Season Stats: 23.1 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 3.9 APG, 1.5 SPG, 35.0% 3PT
MVP Performance: 28 points, nine rebounds, six assists vs. Clemson (Dec. 9)
AJ Dybantsa's 33-point triple-double against Eastern Washington was fun.
The career-high 35 scored three nights prior against Abilene Christian was special.
The 25-point performance against Connecticut was a real testament to his ability to take a game over at a moment's notice.
But it was in that second half in Madison Square Garden against Clemson when Dybantsa's season evolved from "really good" to "potentially legendary."
BYU trailed by 22 early in the second half, but over the final 19 minutes of an outrageous comeback, Dybantsa single-handedly outscored the Tigers by a 22-20 margin, going for 22 points, seven rebounds and five assists after the intermission. He doled out four of those assists on consecutive possessions in the final five minutes, making Clemson pay for (understandably) focusing all of its defensive efforts on preventing him from scoring.
Starting with that night, Dybantsa has averaged 27.4 points, 8.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.4 steals over his last seven games.
In any normal year without Cameron Boozer in the picture, he'd be running away with National Freshman of the Year right about now. And with two games against Arizona, two games against Texas Tech and one each against Iowa State, Houston and Kansas still on the schedule, he'll have plenty of marquee opportunities to turn this into a race for the ages.
1. Cameron Boozer, Duke
12 of 12
Season Stats: 23.3 PPG, 9.7 RPG, 4.2 APG, 1.9 SPG, 37.3% 3PT
MVP Performance: 35 points, nine rebounds, three assists, two steals vs. Arkansas (Nov. 27)
Really, take your pick as far as the MVP performance is concerned, as Boozer has been consistently dominant, tallying at least 14 points, five rebounds and two assists in every single game and named the KenPom MVP in 10 of 15 games played.
Here's the preposterous part of that nugget:
In the five non-MVP games? Boozer still averaged 17.4 points, 8.0 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 2.2 steals.
Both Texas and Michigan State found some way to hold him in check in the first half of those games, but no one has even remotely figured out how to stifle him for a full 40 minutes.
And on nights when he makes multiple three-pointers? He's basically a cheat code, averaging 29.0 points in those seven contests.
Boozer is leading the Blue Devils in points, rebounds, assists and steals, just like Cooper Flagg before him. And though it sometimes feels like Duke's only hope of generating offense is to let him cook, he pretty much always delivers.
Not only is Boozer the frontrunner for National Freshman of the Year, but he remains the clear favorite for the Wooden Award.
.jpg?w=600 "Browns Rejected Cowboys Trade Offer")
