Two days and a couple hundred games isn’t nearly a strong enough sample size to make any broad declarations about a season that will span five months and feature 365 teams.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t do it anyway.
The 2025-26 men’s college basketball season is “The Year of the Freshman.” That’s what it’s been for 48 hours. That’s what it will be for the next five months.
Now, this didn’t exactly come out of thin air. For a couple of years now, recruiting analysts and basketball bennies of every sort have been emphatically stating that the 2025 recruiting class was the best the sport had seen “in decades.” Headlining the class was the so-called “Big Three” of AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer, a trio of players who likely would have been taken in the top 10 of last year’s NBA Draft had they been eligible.
Even with that level of hype, there was plenty of doubt that group of teenagers would have the seismic type of impact on college basketball that some were predicting. After all, the sport has been in the midst of a five-year stretch where “superstar freshmen” were impacting the game at a lower level than at any point since the institution of the “one-and-done” rule in 2o07. The reason? Likely a combination of the sport being older than it ever had been before — due to a combination of the extra year of eligibility for players who experienced the COVID season and the NCAA seemingly rubber stamping eligibility waivers for fear of suffering yet another embarrassing loss in court — and the recent recruiting classes simply not being that good.
Three seasons ago, just one freshman who has been ranked in the top-100 of his recruiting class was on a team that advanced past the Sweet 16. That was Donovan Clingan, who came off the bench for eventual national champion UConn. That same season, just one true freshman — Alabama star Brandon Miller — ranked in the top 100 in the nation in scoring.
A year later in 2024, a grand total of one of the 20 players who started a game in the Final Four was a true freshman. That was Stephon Castle, who helped Connecticut cut down the nets for a second straight year.
There are exceptions to the rule, of course, the most notable perhaps being Cooper Flagg, who won the Wooden Award last season and helped Duke get to the Final Four. Flagg would go on to be selected first overall in the following summer’s NBA Draft, but there was a noticeable difference between the 6’8 unicorn and the other non-Duke freshmen who were taken in the lottery.
Top-five picks Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey put up top-tier numbers in their only season of college hoops … for a Rutgers team that went 15-17. No. 3 overall pick VJ Edgecombe was the second-leading scorer on a Baylor team that limped into the NCAA Tournament as a 9-seed and got blasted by Duke (89-66) in the second round. No. 6 pick Tre Johnson played for a Texas team that lost 16 games, including a First Four defeat at the hands of Xavier. Three more top 15 picks — Colin Murray-Boyles (South Carolina), Cedric Coward (Washington State) and Thomas Sorber (Georgetown) — played for teams that didn’t come close to sniffing the NCAA Tournament.
This season is going to be different. Again, we already gave it a title.
Freshmen putting up outrageous numbers in exhibition games was one thing, but all it took was 48 hours of real in-season play to see that this is going to be a thing for the entirety of the upcoming winter.
It started with a freshman dominating the first real marquee game (and upset) of the season. Facing a Florida frontcourt that many believed would be the best in the sport this season, all Arizona freshman Koa Peat did was score 30 points to go with 7 rebounds and 5 assists as the Wildcats knocked off the reigning national champions on night one. Peat became just the second freshman in Big 12 history to score 30 or more points in his collegiate debut, joining former Kansas State phenom Michael Beasley.
A freshman sensation was also the leading scorer in the nightcap of the high-profile opening night Hall of Fame Series double-header in Las Vegas.
Dybantsa, widely ranked as the No. 1 player in the 2025 class, scored 21 points, grabbed 6 rebounds and handed out a trio of assists as No. 8 BYU kicked off the most anticipated season in program history (in large part because of the signing of Dybantsa) with a 71-66 win over Villanova.
Peterson, the player many believe will be taken No. 1 overall in next June’s NBA Draft over Dybantsa, was equally impressive in his debut for Kansas. He also scored 21 points despite playing far fewer minutes in KU’s season-opening blowout of Green Bay.
As for Boozer, well he struggled offensively in the first half of Duke’s Tuesday night win over Texas, but still finished with 15 points and a game-high 13 rebounds. Light work for the 6’9 forward who scored 24 and grabbed 23 in the Blue Devils’ exhibition win over Tennessee last week.
The other stars of the class have shined this week as well.
Nate Ament dropped a team-high 18 points in Tennessee’s easy win over Mercer. Darius Acuff looked like he could be the next in a long line of great freshman point guards to be coached by John Calipari, dropping 22 for Arkansas in a 109-77 win over Southern. Mikel Brown Jr. played just 18 minutes, but still scored 11 points and had 6 highlight reel assists in Louisville’s 104-45 humiliation of South Carolina State. Caleb Wilson dropped 22 on opening night for North Carolina. And Chris Cenac started (a tall enough task on its own when playing for a coach like Kelvin Sampson) and finished with a double-double (12 and 10) in No. 2 Houston’s season-opening win over Lehigh.
But perhaps the most notable aspect of the season’s first two days is the fact that it hasn’t just been the most well-known members of the freshman class who have been lighting it up.
Hannes Steinbach, a 4-star 6’11 prospect, was sensational in Washington’s season-opener, going for 21 points on 9-of-11 shooting and adding 7 rebounds and 6 assists. While Acuff got most of the attention in Fayetteville, fellow frosh Maleek Thomas chipped in with a mere 21 points and 7 assists. Trey McKenney came off the bench to score 21 points for a loaded Michigan team. Kiyan Anthony, the son of NBA legend Carmelo Anthony, looked stellar in his debut for Syracuse, the school his dad helped lead to a national championship in his only collegiate season.
And the list could go on.
Do you know why the list could go on? Because this is “The Year of the Freshman.”
It’s been established. Now sit back and enjoy the show.
