The college basketball season is rapidly approaching, and with that comes the annual influx of projected national champions, All-Americans, and everything in between. Per usual, the Kansas Jayhawks are involved in all of the conversations, particularly those involving the biggest talent in the sport, where the nation’s No. 1 recruit from the class of 2026, Tyran Stokes, is looking to have his say.
Stokes was tipped as having the best season according to recent coaches' poll
CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander asked several coaches across the sport who will be the best college basketball player this season and the results opened up to Stokes receiving 5% of the possible votes.
The 5% of votes Stokes received makes him the fifth-most-voted player in the nation, behind Thomas Haugh (Florida, 43%), Jeremy Fears Jr. (Michigan State, 15%), Tyler Tanner (Vanderbilt, 14%), David Mirkovic (Illinois, 6%).
Behind Stokes is John Blackwell (Duke, 3%), JT Toppin (Texas Tech, 3%), Flory Bidunga (Louisville, 2%) and an assortment of other players.
“If he lives up to expectations, the 6-8 wing should be the next one-and-done top-five pick to emerge from Hall of Fame coach Bill Self's program, joining the likes of Andrew Wiggins, Darryn Peterson, Josh Jackson, Thomas Robinson and 2023 NBA MVP Joel Embiid,” opens the subsection on Stokes.
Stokes’ senior year at Rainer Beach High School only amplified the hype around him as he averaged 31 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 steals for the Washington 3A State Title winners. Stokes has also had the honor of winning three separate gold medals with the United States, representing the USA in the 2023 FIBA Under-16 Americas Championship, the 2024 FIBA U17 World Cup in Turkey, and the FIBA U19 World Cup in Switzerland in 2025.
“But to win NPOY, as our poll indicates, Stokes will have to out-perform more-experienced projected first-round picks like Haugh, UConn's Braylon Mullins, Arizona's Motiejus Krivas and Duke's Dame Sarr, all of whom received votes and are on teams expected to compete for the national championship.”
Will the Jayhawks be able to compete for the national title?
Opinions are split around whether this team can be one that can assert itself as one of the nation’s best by the time March comes around. In all honesty, if KU didn’t have to undergo the Darryn Peterson drama of last season, then the perception of the 2026 campaign would have a much sunnier outlook.
One of the biggest pros of the 2026 season is that the Jayhawks will hardly have a day off. Iron sharpens iron, right? Next season, KU will have to play Kentucky in the State Farm Champions Classic, Villanova, Missouri in the Border Showdown, UConn and then Ohio State in the CBS Sports Classic. These are all teams that are projected to be involved in next season’s NCAA Tournament, and all this is before conference play even tips off, giving Self and Co plenty of time for evaluation and to gauge how serious they are.
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