Latest 2025-26 Men's College Basketball National Player of the Year Rankings
Is Cameron Boozer going to become Duke's third freshman in less than a decade to win the Wooden Award, or could someone like BYU's AJ Dybantsa or Purdue's Braden Smith overtake him in the race for 2025-26 men's college basketball National Player of the Year?
The Wooden Watch committee released its midseason top 25 last Wednesday, but players need not appear on that list in order to qualify for our latest rankings. In fact, the current No. 6 in our top 10 was quite the egregious omission from that list. If you looked close enough during his 29-point performance against Alabama, you could almost see the chip on the shoulder of Vanderbilt's Tyler Tanner.
One crucial thing to keep in mind when it comes to National Player of the Year candidates is that team success is a major component of the criteria for consideration, as the Wooden Award winner almost always comes from a team that earns a No. 2 seed or better in the NCAA tournament.
As such, every player in our top 10 (as well as each of our 10 honorable mentions) plays for a team that currently ranks top-30 on KenPom. And as the season progresses, that range of teams "eligible" for consideration will only shrink.
Statistics current through the start of play on Wednesday, Jan. 14.
10 Honorable Mentions
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Darius Acuff Jr., Arkansas: If Acuff's next two months are anything like the past two, we're eventually going to need to talk about where he ranks (almost certainly in the top five) on the all-time list of lead guards coached by John Calipari. If the Hogs can get into the mix for a No. 2 or No. 3 seed, his NPOY case becomes much more interesting.
Ryan Conwell, Louisville: Has emerged as Louisville's top candidate during Mikel Brown Jr.'s extended absence. Decent chance he becomes first major-conference player with at least 125 made triples since both Carsen Edwards and Bryce Brown got there in 2018-19.
Jeremy Fears, Michigan State: Between the two losses to Duke and Nebraska and the close call against Arkansas, Fears shot a combined 2-for-25 from the field. But he's No. 2 in the nation in assists and the Spartans are pretty darn good.
Ja'Kobi Gillespie, Tennessee: Dalton Knecht. Chaz Lanier. Ja'Kobi Gillespie. This former lead guard of the Crab Five might become the third consecutive player to transfer into Tennessee and become a Wooden All-American. Has been much more assertive this year, including a career-high 34 points against Texas last Tuesday.
Thomas Haugh, Florida: Haugh has been the brightest star for the reigning champs. Unfortunately, his three highest scoring games have come in losing efforts for a team that was on the NCAA tournament bubble one week ago.
Trey Kaufman-Renn, Purdue: TKR is averaging 13 and 10 for a title contender. But if a Boilermaker is going to win this thing, it is almost certainly going to be Braden Smith.
Darryn Peterson, Kansas: When he plays, it's electric. However, he has already missed nine games and the last Wooden Award winner to appear in fewer than 31 games was Phil Ford in 1978. In order for Peterson to reach 31 at this point, Kansas needs to make it to the national championship and he has to play in every remaining game.
Labaron Philon, Alabama: Was a quality freshman last year, but has become a dynamite sophomore. It's a shame he missed most of the second half against Vanderbilt last week with "full body cramps." That was his chance to really make a case for first-team All-American.
JT Toppin, Texas Tech: This double-double machine would've made the cut if it were a top 11. But with one win in five tries against top-40 opponents, will the Red Raiders be relevant enough for Toppin to legitimately vie for the Wooden Award?
Keaton Wagler, Illinois: Freshman phenom averaged 18 points, seven assists and five rebounds in December. Has blossomed into the brightest star of an over-shadowed Illini squad.
10. To Be Determined Connecticut Husky
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Brace yourself for three of these spots at the bottom of our top 10, because three of the potential No. 1 seeds have been so incredibly well-rounded that it's difficult to lock in any specific player as the top NPOY candidate at this point in time.
At least with both Arizona and Iowa State, the list of viable options has been whittled down to three.
With Connecticut, however, throw a dart at a starter and you might be right.
In last Wednesday's wild comeback against Providence, Silas Demary Jr., Alex Karaban, Braylon Mullins and Tarris Reed each scored at least 20 points. The solo exception was Solo Ball with 10, and he arguably had been the Huskies' top candidate for NPOY when we put together the initial rankings one month ago.
If no one clearly emerges from the pack while Connecticut continues to assert its dominance atop the Big East, it'll probably be Karaban becoming the de facto choice, as he chases his third national championship.
However, Demary's assists, steals and lead guard status could be what pushes him to the head of the class. Or if Mullins hitting five or six threes per night becomes commonplace on his way to the NBA draft lottery, that sure would generate some inescapable buzz.
9. To Be Determined Arizona Wildcat
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Out of the gates, the choice for Arizona was clearly Koa Peat.
He exploded for 30 points with seven rebounds, five assists and three steals in his collegiate debut in a neutral win over the reigning national champions. He hasn't scored more than 20 in a game since, but he proceeded to put up 16 and 12 in a road win over UConn, as well as an 18-5-4-2-1 line with no turnovers in the early December rout of Auburn.
Meanwhile, Jaden Bradley has been fantastic as the veteran leader of the squad. He, too, was exquisite in the three wins mentioned above, averaging 21.3 points. And, incredibly, Wednesday's 25-point victory over Kansas State was the first time all season that Bradley failed to post an O-Rating of at least 118. Between shooting 52 percent from three and averaging nearly three assists per turnover, his efficiency has been elite.
Lately, though, Brayden Burries has become the star of the show. After starting slow for the first couple of weeks, he averaged 18.8 points over his next 10 games, emerging as Arizona's most credible threat to score from anywhere within 30 feet of the hoop. And in the marquee win at Alabama, he simply put the Wildcats on his back while they ran away in the second half.
If forced to bet on one of the three right now, the choice is probably Bradley. Seems likely that if and when the Wildcats end up in another tight game, he'll be the one they turn to in the clutch. Plus, freshmen often hit a proverbial wall at some point during the rigors of conference play and Bradley is much more experienced when it comes to running this marathon.
Could be any of the three, though. And it'll likely boil down to who shines brightest during the four-game stretch from hell in mid-February against Kansas, Texas Tech, BYU and Houston.
8. To Be Determined Iowa State Cyclones
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What sets Iowa State apart from Arizona and UConn is that the books have at least identified a Cyclone as a legitimate candidate. No one from the Wildcats or Huskies is listed at shorter odds than +10000, but the Cyclones' Joshua Jefferson is somewhere in the +1200 to +1600 range across the board.
Jefferson has also been No. 2 behind Cameron Boozer in the KenPom Player of the Year standings every time I can remember checking.
Deservedly so, one might add. He's putting up "Royce White with a perimeter jumper" numbers of 17.4 PPG, 7.8 RPG and 4.9 APG, including a triple-double against West Virginia in the ISU's Big 12 opener.
But are we sure he's actually Iowa State's top candidate?
Because Tamin Lipsey is having an outrageous season in his own right, averaging 5.4 assists, 2.4 steals and just 0.8 turnovers per game. If he was just a little bit better from three-point range (31.4 percent), he'd be right up there with Braden Smith for title of best point guard in the country—and Lipsey did out-class Smith when the Cyclones smoked the Boilermakers in early December.
And then there's Milan Momcilovic, who has been unreal from distance, connecting on 53.8 percent of his 6.9 attempts per game. As a result, he's fourth in the nation in effective field-goal percentage and is No. 2 in the nation in true-shooting percentage.
Take your pick. At the moment, there's no wrong answer. And the longer Iowa State remains a potential No. 1 seed, the more inevitable it becomes that at least one of these guys will be an All-American.
7. Caleb Wilson, North Carolina
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Season Stats: 19.5 PPG, 11.0 RPG, 2.7 APG, 1.4 BPG, 1.4 SPG
MVP Performance: 20 points, 15 rebounds, three blocks, two assists vs. Ohio State (Dec. 20)
North Carolina's ceiling doesn't feel as high as those of Arizona, Connecticut and Iowa State, but there's no debating who the brightest star is in Chapel Hill.
Caleb Wilson is tops among Tar Heels in points, rebounds, blocks and steals. And though he isn't leading the way in assists, 2.7 dimes per game is mighty impressive from the 6'10" big man. At any rate, he's twice the passer that Armando Bacot ever was.
Wilson is also the angriest dunker North Carolina has had since Vince Carter, which ensures regular appearances in highlight reels and constant impressions upon the committees responsible for naming the National Player of the Year.
He has scored at least 13 points in every game thus far, and the ACC's leading rebounder has already amassed 11 double-doubles. In two of those performances—at Kentucky, vs. Florida State—Wilson also had six assists, so don't sleep on the possibility of a triple-double here before all is said and done.
If it's going to happen, a good guess is Valentine's Day against Pitt, which only has one player taller than 6'10" in its primary seven-man rotation, and figures to be running into a buzzsaw of Wilson, Henri Veesaar and Jarin Stevenson. But I digress, because the main games to watch with Wilson are the (at least) two showdowns with Duke and Cameron Boozer on the 7th of both February and March.
If he out-shines Boozer in either of those head-to-head battles, the plot thickens.
6. Tyler Tanner, Vanderbilt
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Season Stats: 17.3 PPG, 5.4 APG, 3.6 RPG, 2.6 SPG, 38.8% 3PT
MVP Performance: 29 points, seven assists, four steals, three rebounds vs. Alabama (Jan. 7)
One year ago, Tyler Tanner was a complete afterthought.
Yes, as a freshman, he was one of nine Commodores who averaged at least 18 minutes played per game. However, he was mostly out there to play some defense while the actual assets got a breather. He only averaged 4.3 points per game in SEC play and was pretty much the definition of replacement-level, worth 0.007 win shares per 40 minutes played in league play.
Fast forward to Vanderbilt's first two conference games against South Carolina and Alabama and Tanner averaged 24.0 points and 10.5 assists on his way to a .343 WS/40 ratio that would rank second in the nation if he had been putting up numbers that absurd all season.
Because the 'Dores lost A.J. Hoggard, Jason Edwards, MJ Collins, Chris Manon and Grant Huffman, no one in the preseason quite knew what to expect from this revamped backcourt. But this lone returnee of the bunch has catapulted into that vacuum, tripling his scoring average and more than doubling his assist rate in the process of becoming an assertive star.
Tanner is still one heck of a factor on defense, too, tallying multiple steals in 14 of 16 games played.
The general public has been hesitant to buy into Vanderbilt as a legitimate championship contender, but that win over Alabama was a tipping point in which Tanner was a wrecking ball. As a result, his NPOY hype train is quickly gaining steam.
5. Kingston Flemings, Houston
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Season Stats: 15.4 PPG, 5.2 APG, 3.4 RPG, 1.9 SPG, 38.5% 3PT
MVP Performance: 21 points, six rebounds, five assists, four steals vs. Arkansas (Dec. 20)
It's a tough call between Kingston Flemings and Tyler Tanner for the final spot in the top five, which is the unofficial race for the last first-team All-American honor. Each has been lethal on both ends of the floor, and Tanner's per-game numbers are marginally better across the board.
However, Flemings is our pick for two reasons.
First and arguably foremost is the KenPom Game MVP leaderboard. Tanner does have six such performances, but Flemings is leading the nation with 11, just perpetually leading Houston's charge. If anything, that data point makes it feel like Flemings is a bit too low on this list.
But second is the fact that it's nonsensical to compare per-game stats between players from teams that operate at wildly different tempos. Here's a better way to look at it:
Statistics Per 100 Possessions
Flemings: 31.3 points, 10.2 assists, 6.5 rebounds, 4.0 steals
Tanner: 31.4 points, 9.9 assists, 6.6 rebounds, 4.8 steals
Basically identical, and Flemings has done it against a marginally more difficult schedule for a team that is still regarded as likelier to win it all, Houston listed at +1200 while Vanderbilt checks in at +1800.
It's a shame All-American voting takes place before the NCAA tournament begins, because we tentatively could let a second-weekend (or Final Four) showdown settle this debate.
(How fun would that backcourt matchup be? Flemings, Milos Uzan and Emanuel Sharp vs. Tanner, Duke Miles and Tyler Nickel? Mercy.)
4. Yaxel Lendeborg, Michigan
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Season Stats: 14.7 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 3.3 APG, 1.4 BPG, 1.3 SPG, 35.4% 3PT
MVP Performance: 29 points, nine assists, eight rebounds, three blocks, two steals at Maryland (Dec. 9)
Across the board, Yaxel Lendeborg's per-game numbers are down from what he posted last season at UAB, when he averaged 17.7 points and 11.4 rebounds.
However, between the drastically better supporting cast and the fact that most Michigan games (prior to this past week) have been over by halftime, he's also playing about 22 percent fewer minutes than last season.
So, after that per 100 possessions comparison of Flemings and Tanner, we'd better do one for Lendeborg, too.
2025-26 Lendeborg, per 100 possessions: 29.2 points, 2.8 blocks, 2.5 steals, 6.6 assists, 13.8 rebounds, 3.1 made threes on 8.6 attempts
2024-25 Lendeborg, per 100 possessions: 29.9 points, 3.0 blocks, 2.9 steals, 7.2 assists, 19.2 rebounds, 1.1 made threes on 3.2 attempts
Points, blocks, steals and assists are basically unchanged, even though the competition level is much, much higher. And his positional shift from "primary center at UAB" to "combo forward looking to prove his value as a 3-and-D wing to the NBA" explains the decrease in rebounds and spike in triples.
Lendeborg still does it all. Michigan simply doesn't need him to do it all all of the time like the Blazers did. And he's doing his thing way more efficiently than last year, save for two off nights against Wake Forest and USC.
The big question is whether he'll end up with enough jaw-dropping stat lines to really contend for NPOY.
Best player on the best team is a heck of a starting point for stating Lendeborg's case for the Wooden Award, but just three Game Scores of 19.0 or greater looks rather pathetic when compared to Cameron Boozer only having four games below that threshold and AJ Dybantsa averaging north of 20.
3. AJ Dybantsa, BYU
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Season Stats: 22.9 PPG, 7.1 RPG, 3.9 APG, 1.5 SPG, 32.6% 3PT
MVP Performance: 28 points, nine rebounds, six assists vs. Clemson (Dec. 9)
In September 1991—more than 15 years before AJ Dybantsa was born—Michael Jordan hosted Saturday Night Live. Part of that was an appearance in an iconic "Bill Swerski's Super Fans" sketch in which MJ was asked of the upcoming 1992 Summer Olympics: Why don't you just play these countries by yourself?
Well, about six weeks ago, it seems someone asked Dybantsa a similar question about BYU's schedule. Because after averaging an already impressive 19.0 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 0.6 steals per game in November, he has since taken over to the tune of 26.0, 7.7, 5.1 and 2.2, respectively.
Granted, for the most part, it has come against unremarkable competition. But Dybantsa's second-half performance at MSG against Clemson was legendary. Even on a random Tuesday in early December against a non-blue blood, it got the entire sports world buzzing.
Now, what if he does something similar when BYU wraps up January with back-to-back games against Arizona and Kansas? Or a few weeks later when the Cougars consecutively draw Arizona and Iowa State?
For what it's worth, that game against the Cyclones on Feb. 21 will tip-off about two hours after the Michigan-Duke game ends in Washington D.C. That's shaping up to be the day this NPOY race either effectively ends or gets all sorts of fun.
2. Braden Smith, Purdue
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Season Stats: 14.1 PPG, 9.8 APG, 3.7 RPG, 1.9 SPG, 40.6% 3PT
MVP Performance: 24 points, 14 assists, two steals, one turnover vs. Penn State (Jan. 10)
It's rare for a consensus first-team All-American to stay in school for one more year.
It's rarer still for that player to get even better in his return to campus.
But Braden Smith has done just that.
He averaged 8.8 assists per 40 minutes two years ago and 9.4 last season, but he's up to a staggering 12.1 thus far in 2025-26 in his pursuit of Bobby Hurley's career record of 1,076 dimes—which he is well on pace to reach, unless Purdue gets immediately eliminated from both the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments, in which case it could be a photo finish.
Is he passing up scoring opportunities and occasionally forcing the issue (see: career-high turnover rate) in the name of chasing assists? Maybe a tiny bit. But A) his effective field-goal percentage (55.5) has never been higher and B) can you blame him? This is all-time history we're talking about here.
Besides, when they really need a bucket, Smith is more than happy to go get it. He had a season-high 29 points in that seven-point win over Alabama, had 24 this past weekend against Penn State and scored 23 in the eight-point win over Washington. Every other game has been decided by a larger margin than that, and three cheers to him if he wants to rack up 14 assists in a 28-point rout of Auburn.
Of note: Purdue does not have to play on the road against Michigan, Michigan State or Illinois this season. And if Smith and the Boilermakers do what they couldn't do against Iowa State and hold serve at Mackey Arena the rest of the way, setting an NCAA career record for assists while steering the ship for what could be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament would be hard to ignore.
1. Cameron Boozer, Duke
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Season Stats: 22.9 PPG, 9.5 RPG, 4.2 APG, 1.8 SPG, 38.1% 3PT
MVP Performance: 35 points, nine rebounds, three assists, two steals vs. Arkansas (Nov. 27)
This past Sunday was the one-year anniversary of Cooper Flagg scoring 42 points against Notre Dame on the same day that Johni Broome suffered his ankle injury against South Carolina, which all but ended the race for the Wooden Award in the span of a few hours.
At that point, 16 games into the season, Flagg was averaging 19.1 points, 8.3 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.6 steals, shooting 34.5 percent from three-point range.
All great numbers; all a bit worse than what Boozer has accomplished through 16 games.
The thing with Boozer is he simply doesn't believe in off nights.
Flagg had spurts/turnovers early in the year when it was painfully apparent that he was still just an 18-year-old freshman. But while Boozer has battled his own bouts of turnover woes in recent weeks, he always ends up doing far more good than harm.
That doesn't mean this race is over, of course.
For starters, the last 11 Wooden Award winners—assuming we can agree that Dayton was going to be either a No. 1 or No. 2 seed in 2020—played for either a No. 1 or No. 2 seed. Moreover, all seven of Duke's Wooden winners played on a No. 1 seed. And the Blue Devils aren't nearly the juggernaut they were one season ago. That might be a key factor in this year's race.
The competition is undeniably fiercer than last year, too, with the added potential of teams flirting with perfection into late January and beyond. We haven't had an undefeated team on Jan. 12 since five seasons ago, when Baylor made it into late February and Gonzaga came one game away from perfection, but we've got five at the moment.
For now, though, Boozer remains the clear favorite.
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