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New York Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Tyran Stokes or Jordan Smith Jr.? College hoops coaches on their favorite players in 2026
NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — When it comes to the 2026 recruiting class, two players have separated from the pack: Tyran Stokes and Jordan Smith Jr. Stokes, a 6-foot-7, 245-pound forward, has been the consensus No. 1 player in the 2026 class according to talent evaluators for years now, but he might not be the overwhelming top player any longer. Based on conversations with college coaches last weekend at Peach Jam, Nike's annual championship tournament for its circuit, Stokes is the most polarizing player in this class, and Smith, a 6-2 guard with a 6-9 wingspan, is a player coaches believe can immediately impact winning. The duo dominated our poll when we asked 35 coaches which player they would most like to have from the 2026 class. Advertisement And in somewhat of a surprise, Smith barely outpaced Stokes. This is the conclusion of our Peach Jam coaches' poll, which also included what coaches think about NCAA Tournament expansion and the future of revenue sharing/budgets. Coaches were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor. Below, we also asked coaches whether they believe eligibility rules should be changed to allow for a fifth year of eligibility. Here are the results. (Note: Two coaches picked two players.) Big Ten assistant: 'Motor, impacts winning at the highest level of anyone. College body. Can come in and help a team right away.' ACC assistant: 'Toughest player I've ever seen play the game. Winner, best defensive player, every 50-50 is his. And if you want to have a chance to win a national championship, you get those players.' SEC head coach: 'NBA body ready. He just guards the ball. He just dominates the ball, and he's just fierce.' Big Ten assistant: 'He will change your program.' Mountain West assistant: 'I'm watching Tyran Stokes — I think the kid's an absolute stud, he's awesome — but I'm not saying you're going to take him No. 1 in the draft. (If) that's the No. 1 player in the country? There's nobody. 'He's just so physically gifted. LeBron (James) looks like a fish out of water in terms of strength and physicality in the NBA, and that's what Stokes is going to look like in college. He's a Zion-ish (type) where you just can't stay in front of him.' SEC assistant: 'Have you seen him?' Diane, a 7-1 center from Norwalk, Iowa, and the No. 15 player in the class (per 247Sports), was the only other player to pick up multiple votes. Big 12 assistant: 'I just think what he does translates the most to the college game. You look at the four Final Four teams, they had the best, deepest front lines in college basketball. Front courts don't win in the NBA, but they win in college.' Advertisement Atlantic 10 head coach: 'Rebounds, runs the floor, has super high motor. He can handle it and dribble. He can operate as a hub, and then he's just a monster in the post, monster rim runner, runs so hard, puts so much stress on the defense. Just plays so hard. He's so physical. He's fantastic.' Big Ten assistant: 'I would always start with a point guard. I'd go with Deron Rippey. He's just a dynamic playmaker as a point guard. I think he's going to be a great four-year college player who wins 120 games and goes to two Final Fours.' Big 12 head coach: 'Ethan Taylor. Seven-footer who catches the ball and can score and doesn't have an ego and plays hard. He comes off the bench on his team, and he might be the best player on the team.' Big Ten assistant: 'I want tough kids, culture kids, kids who want to be coached hard. That's harder and harder to find. But Jasiah Jervis (NY Rens) and Julius Avent (PSA Cardinals) are two of those kind of kids.' This past season was the final year of the extra year of eligibility for athletes who competed in the 2020-21 season — known as the COVID-19 year. There are still a handful of players using a fifth season because they competed that year and then might have also had a medical redshirt season, but we're closer to the old standard: You have five years to play four. Several players have tried to sue for an extra year of eligibility, and chatter around college athletics is that eventually the NCAA might allow for a fifth year of eligibility. The NCAA Division II Management Council recommended this week that its executive board sponsor a proposal for the 2026 NCAA Convention that would allow athletes to compete in five seasons of competition during their first 10 semesters or 15 quarters of enrollment. We asked coaches whether they were for or against such a proposal. Big 12 assistant: 'I think it should be normalized. So many of these kids, their first year is their most frustrating year, and a fifth year just needs to be normalized in college to where these kids and their people and their circles don't hold programs hostage for first-year success. We've got to get back to where, your first year, it's okay to develop. And if fifth-year eligibility helps the groupthink with that, then I'm all about it.' Advertisement ACC head coach: 'With all the transferring now, most kids need five years now to graduate — if we're still going to even pretend like we're trying to graduate kids academically. I think five years makes a lot of sense. Most college kids — normal college students — take five years now to graduate. So it would make sense, stand to reason, that a student-athlete get five years, too.' Big East assistant: 'In football, 30 percent of a football season, a guy gets to start four games at quarterback and transfer and get the year back. For us, we've had young players that we knew weren't going to play that much, and if we put them in the game for a minute in the opener, they're done for the season. So it's hard to get these guys a true understanding of where they are in the rotation after an exhibition game and a scrimmage. So if you have five years, you have a little bit more leeway there.' SEC assistant: 'You got five years to play five. Don't care how you do it, no more redshirt, no more blueshirt, no more all the shirts.' Atlantic 10 head coach: 'It gets rid of any waiver, any BS. Everybody knows you got five years. It takes out an injury unless you have two injuries. You get five years to play however many years you can. NCAA needs as few things that they can get sued on as possible.' Conference USA assistant: 'I'm OK with it, because it's a money-maker for those (fifth-year) players. It keeps NBA-fringe guys here, in the states, longer, instead of going overseas.' ACC head coach: 'I don't like it. I'd rather still have the option to redshirt, but the fact that we're giving kids five seasons now, I think, is ridiculous.' ACC assistant: 'Everything kind of got screwed up with the COVID year; obviously, a lot of guys got fifth years — and sometimes sixth years — so it appeared we were going away from the traditional way. I think now is the time for us to get back to that, and I like that. Obviously, if it weren't for NIL, from the player standpoint, there wouldn't be this push to stay in college for as long. So we're seeing one affect the other.' Advertisement Big 12 head coach: 'Where does it stop? I mean, if you get a fifth, then what's a sixth? I don't even know where the end comes. It makes sense if we could figure out how to not be more than five, but to me, if it's five, then it keeps going.' Big 12 assistant: 'I just hate seeing 26- and 27-year-olds playing college basketball. I wish they would change it that if your coach left, then sure, you got 45 days or whatever to transfer, but a one-time transfer rule where you play right away or else you got to sit out a year so that it's not just free agency every year like it is now.' SEC head coach: 'They talk about coaches having workarounds and finding workarounds; I think players, families, agents are gonna find workarounds to try to extend their length of college because the majority of them are gonna make way more money in college than they are after college.' West Coast Conference head coach: 'I think the old model of five years to play four worked so well, and you had that extra year in case they got hurt. The academic piece has been totally lost in this. There are guys who have gotten a sixth or seven year with so many waivers. It's crazy. Also, if we gave everyone five years, what's going to happen to all the records we value so much? Then again, maybe if everyone is transferring every year or two, we don't need to worry about records being broken.' (Photo of Tyran Stokes: Chris Day / The Commercial Appeal / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
New York Times
6 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
What we're hearing about college basketball budgets in revenue-sharing era: ‘Money-dump year'
NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Have we maybe, finally, reached the peak of college basketball spending? It depends who you ask … but it's certainly possible. Why? Because this offseason, college sports' old and new funding models — established name, image, and likeness (NIL) norms, plus the introduction of revenue-sharing — overlapped, giving programs a one-year window to blow the bank. Advertisement 'This year is the money-dump year because of everything that's happening,' said one assistant coach at a mid-major-plus school. 'We will never see these numbers again. Now, what does that mean moving forward? We don't know.' That uncertainty was a near-consensus sentiment among the 35 coaches The Athletic polled at Peach Jam last weekend. Much of that stems from the unknown ramifications of the long-anticipated House vs. NCAA settlement, which took effect July 1 and allows schools — for the first time — to pay athletes directly through revenue sharing, with a $20.5 million cap per school for all sports combined. Athletes are still allowed to reach third-party NIL deals that don't count against the cap, but those agreements could come under more scrutiny in a post-House world, with a new clearinghouse — NIL Go — set to review them. Will NIL Go approve the sorts of million-dollar deals that have become the industry standard over the last four seasons? This early into the revenue-sharing era, coaches don't know. But if one thing is clear, it's that budgets for this season are eye-popping. To understand just how swollen budgets have become this offseason, we asked all 35 coaches: On average, what would you estimate teams in your conference spent on their rosters for the upcoming 2025-26 season? Coaches were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor. The answers are telling — even considering the wide range of budgets within each league. (In the 18-team ACC, for example, the difference between the highest- and lowest-spending schools is eight figures.) But for as sexy as those numbers are, it's crucial to remember why basketball budgets have grown, especially for next season. Prior to the House settlement, most college players were paid by school collectives, who funneled money directly from donors to athletes under the guise of NIL. Now, in a revenue-sharing world, schools can distribute up to $20.5 million annually to players. Men's basketball isn't getting that entire pie — Opendorse, an NIL marketplace company, estimates most high-major programs will receive 20.3 percent of that on average — but still: that's a few extra million teams can dole out. Advertisement So, when you combine old collective money — most of which schools intentionally spent before July 1 — with new revenue-sharing funds? Voila: You get a basketball bubble, and budgets reaching never-before-seen heights. 'There is a realization for most,' said one Big Ten assistant, 'that the money will not be the same.' In many ways, one byproduct of the House settlement led to this offseason's spending boon. That would be the College Sports Commission (CSC), the new enforcement agency responsible for regulating revenue-sharing and cutting down on the pay-for-play deals that have become the industry standard. To regulate 'fair' market deals, the CSC created a clearinghouse, NIL Go, which is run by Deloitte and which vets any third-party NIL deals worth over $600. Considering schools have regularly been paying top talents hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of dollars annually, coaches were understandably apprehensive about the clearinghouse review process. Most who The Athletic spoke to admitted that they 'front-loaded' contracts this offseason, spending as much collective money as possible in case NIL Go made it effectively unusable. 'With the collectives being in question, and all the details that are coming out about the settlement,' said one SEC head coach, 'I don't know what it's gonna look like.' And that uncertainty is still palpable. The CSC announced earlier this month that it wouldn't clear any collective deals, seemingly validating coaches' front-loading … only to reverse course on Tuesday after substantial backlash; the enforcement body now says it will consider collectives 'valid businesses,' but will still hold them to the fair 'range of compensation' rules that traditional third parties are subject to. What does that mean for future spending? Advertisement Simply, if high-major programs are to sustain their current roster budgets, then supplemental collective money is a necessity. Consider: The average expected revenue sharing allotment for high-major teams — about 20.3 percent of $20.5 million — comes out to about $4.2 million … or half of what programs are estimated to be spending this upcoming year. Is the college basketball economy really going to nosedive to that extent? 'You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube,' an ACC head coach said. 'The free market has (borne) what these numbers are, so now you can't come back and correct the free market, and say, 'Well, actually, this isn't the free market. What we determine is the free market is the free market.' If you were able to do that, we wouldn't be running to Congress asking for help, because that would be legal. What we're doing now isn't legal.' It's easy to talk about college basketball spending in a macro sense. But what does that look like at the one-on-one level with players? 'You're going to have a kid making 400 (thousand), and you're gonna go, 'Well, next year I only have 200 for you,'' an ACC assistant said. 'That doesn't usually sit real well.' As a Big 12 assistant put it: 'That's going to be a hard conversation to kids you're already loyal to.' The ramifications could be landscape-shifting. With players having more freedom of movement than ever, coaches worry that a stark drop in spending — especially in the span of one offseason — will lead to the most frantic offseason of the NIL era yet. Another roster construction concern: How much should coaches allocate for freshmen, especially those who rarely impact winning their first college season? 'A lot of these '26 kids have friends who were in the '25 class and got a lot of money — and now you're offering them a quarter of that?' said an SEC assistant. 'We're gonna struggle initially, trying to explain the difference.' Advertisement Which is why only three top-25 recruits in the 2026 class have committed so far. Other uncertainties abound, too. For all the talk about 'average' allotments to high-major programs, for instance, what about the blue bloods set to receive an outsized percentage of their school's revenue-sharing funds? What Duke and Kentucky receive, for instance, will be drastically different from what teams residing alongside powerhouse football programs — like Alabama, Ohio State, and Clemson — will ultimately get. 'If you're talking true rev share,' one blue blood assistant admitted, 'then we've been given an opportunity to be competitive.' There's also the looming threat of non-football leagues, namely the Big East and Atlantic 10. On one hand, not having football means most Big East schools won't come close to paying out the overall $20.5 million cap permitted by the House settlement. But on the other hand? Those same schools can give their men's basketball programs the largest cut of the revenue sharing pie, rather than the 20 percent that most of their high-major colleagues should receive. 'The Big East would be able to likely — with the commitment and the resources — double and triple some of these SEC and Big Ten schools,' said one Atlantic 10 head coach. 'I don't know what the next set of rules are going to be, but I guarantee you it's not going to be that.' Added the SEC head coach: 'We talk as a staff that we might be competing against Atlantic 10 schools for kids, if it's based on just money.' We won't know for a while whether or not the CSC truly has the teeth to stem the flood of collective money into college sports. But if it does, and revenue-sharing funds are something of a legitimate cap? Expect teams to get, uh, creative when it comes to navigating the clearinghouse's restrictions. Advertisement 'There's probably some guys out there,' one Big 12 head coach said, 'that are going to figure out a way to do some things that are within the letter of the law — (but) maybe not the spirit of the law.' Or, more succinctly, in the words of one WCC head coach: 'It's just going to bring back cheating. I don't want to be naive about that.' After surveying coaches at just under 10 percent of Division I schools, the only thing that's become clear is how divided the college basketball universe is on what to make of revenue sharing. Will it curtail massive donor influence in college basketball? Will it curb overall spending and level the financial playing field? Or is it just a slight impediment to the free market and the hefty prices that have emerged in the NIL era? Is it enforceable? Destined to get sued into oblivion? A precursor to collective bargaining? There's no clear answer to any of it. 'We continually ask for help and guardrails — and then when we get them, we complain about them, find ways around them, and then we sue the NCAA,' another ACC head coach said. 'Sooner or later, coaches are going to have to decide what they want this ultimately to look like. And if we're going to continue to find ways around stuff, or sue, then it's just going to be chaos.'
USA Today
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Tom Izzo, John Calipari seen sitting courtside together at Peach Jam
What do you think these pair of hall of famers were chatting about at Peach Jam this past weekend? If you ever want to run into a pair of hall of famers, you just need to go to recruiting events. It's the middle of the offseason and peak recruiting season so of course Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo is out and about pursuing potential future Spartans. This week, that included a stop at the annual monster recruiting event EYBL Nike Peach Jam in North August, S.C. Izzo was one of many notable coaches on hand for the recruiting event, and he was spotted sitting courtside next to a fellow hall of famer: John Calipari of Arkansas. Thank you to college basketball reporter and insider John Fanta for snapping a picture of the two chatting on the sidelines during Peach Jam. Check out the picture from Fanta below: What do you think these two are chatting about? It could be about the upcoming reported home-and-home Michigan State and Arkansas will be playing over the next two season. The Spartans are expected to host the Razorbacks at the Breslin Center this upcoming season, and then will travel to Fayetteville, Ark. during the 2026-27 season. Both Izzo and Calipari have been around the game of basketball for a long time, and have both experienced a ton of success on the hardwood. But it is still always cool to me to see them at events like this with boots on the ground recruiting as hard as they did when they first started 30-plus years ago. Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.
Dominion Post
07-05-2025
- Sport
- Dominion Post
WVU men's hoops adds incoming freshman Jayden Forsythe
MORGANTOWN — The West Virginia Mountaineers basketball program has added another commitment from West Chester (Pa.) Westtown School 2025 guard Jayden Forsythe. Forsythe, 6-foot-5, 190-pounds, picked the Mountaineers over a long list of scholarship offers including Xavier, Illinois, Virginia Tech, Texas A&M, Penn State, Northwestern, Wake Forest and a number of others. The three-star prospect was initially committed to Xavier from September until late March when he requested his release from the Musketeers. A smart, skilled guard Forsythe is one of the better three-point shooters in the 2025 class. Forsythe was the only player on the EYBL circuit to shoot over 40% from 3-point range on 75-plus 3-point attempts. He averaged 9.5 points per game for Team Final at the Peach Jam this past summer, while shooting 39% from three-point range. Forsythe took an official visit to Morgantown May 3-4 after previously visiting Tulane April 29-30. That was enough to close the door on his recruitment by committing to the Mountaineers. 'I have everything I need to be successful at the next level,' he said. 'It's also in one of the best conferences in America in the Big 12.I'm excited to get to work.' Forsythe has his complete complement of eligibility remaining in his career. The 2025 guard is the latest addition to the roster joining fellow 2025 forward prospect DJ Thomas as well as eight other transfer additions since Ross Hodge took over the program. West Virginia is now up to 10 players in total on the 2025-26 roster with the coaching staff still looking to address other needs in the coming weeks. — Story by Keenan Cummings
New York Times
18-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Bryce James, LeBron's youngest son, officially signs with Arizona
After committing to Arizona in January, Bryce James, the youngest son of LeBron James and younger brother of Bronny James, officially signed with the Wildcats on Thursday. 'What's going on Wildcat nation, can't wait to get there and start working. Bear down,' Bryce said in a post on X. Bryce has officially signed 🐻⬇️ — Arizona Basketball (@ArizonaMBB) April 17, 2025 James, who will turn 18 in June, is a three-star recruit and the No. 257 player in the Class of 2025, per the 247Sports Composite. The 6-foot-5 shooting guard played for Sierra Canyon in California and chose Arizona over Ohio State and Duquesne. James was part of the state-title winning Sierra Canyon team, scoring three points on nine shots with five rebounds and two assists in the championship game. He averaged 6.9 points and 2.2 rebounds in 14 games last summer playing for his dad's AAU program, Strive for Greatness, on the Nike EYBL circuit. He then averaged 5.6 points and 2.8 rebounds in five games at the Peach Jam in July. Advertisement The Wildcats' 2025 recruiting class ranks seventh nationally, per 247Sports, behind Houston, UConn, Kentucky, Arkansas, North Carolina and BYU. Bryce was the second commitment in Arizona's 2025 class after four-star wing Dwayne Aristode. Five-star recruits Koa Peat and Brayden Burries — the Nos. 8 and 11 overall players in the class, respectively — round out the class. Bryce' older brother, Bronny, played one season of college basketball at USC before the Los Angeles Lakers selected him with the 55th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. In October, LeBron and Bronny became the first father-son duo to play in an NBA game together. As a prospect, Bryce is less developed than his older brother was at this point in their respective careers — which is notable, since Bronny was still relatively ineffective as a high-major freshman. Both are about the same size, but Bronny has always been more physically developed than Bryce, both from a strength and athleticism perspective. Given what Bryce has shown thus far in terms of productivity, it would be shocking if he played a major role as a freshman next season. Before committing to Arizona, the only two major players in Bryce's recruitment were Duquesne — where LeBron's close friend and former high school teammate, Dru Joyce III, coaches — and Ohio State, which is less than two hours away from LeBron's hometown of Akron, Ohio. This is not to say that Bryce will never be an impactful college player, but even compared to Bronny — who would have benefitted developmentally from at least one, if not more, additional years in college — this will be a long-term process for the Wildcats. Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd has proven to be an apt talent evaluator and developer, but this commitment feels much more like a multi-season developmental play than one geared toward meaningful contributions next season. Advertisement In the EYBL this summer, Bryce had multiple contests where he hardly registered on a box score. That just isn't going to cut it at the high-major level, and especially not at Arizona, which won at least 27 games in each of Lloyd's first three seasons as coach. In terms of play style, Bryce is even more of a strict off-ball player than Bronny. Bryce is marginally taller than Bronny, and given his age, there's absolutely the potential he keeps growing (although it seems unlikely he'll be 6-foot-9 like LeBron). That frame, combined with the shooting touch Bryce has showcased at various lower levels, suggests he could eventually become a perimeter floor-spacer, although he'll need to become much more coordinated defensively to guard opposing high-major wings. But even that projection is more predicated on Bryce's tools than his actual on-court production to date. There's no understating how far Bryce is from being a productive high-major freshman, not to mention a potential NBA player one day. — Brendan Marks, college basketball writer
