Welcome back to another year of CBS Sports’ Candid Coaches feature. College basketball insiders Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander surveyed nearly 100 men’s Division I coaches in the thick of the offseason; as always, interviewees were given the promise of anonymity in a swap for honest and enlightening answers on a medley of topics. Be it some of the most high-profile names in the game or assistants at low-major programs, Norlander and Parrish spanned the sport to get a wide range of feedback. This year’s survey had nine questions, and this is the second in our 2026 series.In previous years, back before NIL and revenue-sharing completely changed the sport, it was reasonable to assume most of college basketball’s best players would leave just as soon as they were established.The retention of stars was not good.That’s because, back then, all schools could legally offer were scholarships and cost-of-attendance stipends that could easily be trumped by pretty much any professional contract — NBA or otherwise. Did some schools offer more via rule-breaking coaches and/or boosters? Yes, of course. (And they’ll do it again the moment anybody tries to put a hard cap on what college athletes can earn!) But the reality is that, for decades, once a college basketball player proved worthy of a six-figure contract in a professional league somewhere, with few exceptions, he would forgo all remaining eligibility and become a professional basketball player.
That’s not true anymore, though.
Again, the combination of NIL, revenue-sharing and unlimited transfers has created a world where any college basketball player, other than something like a projected top-15 pick in the NBA Draft, can probably make more money in college the following season than they can in any professional league, the NBA included. Not every player has taken advantage of this fact, for one reason or another — but lots did this past offseason! The result is an increased level of talent across the sport — and familiar faces to market. It’s all good stuff and among the reasons it’s likely that we’ll have a non-freshman national player of the year this season for the first time in three years.
Candid Coaches: Should 2026 seniors be grandfathered into the NCAA’s five-in-five eligibility rule?
Matt Norlander
But who?
As we do every year, Matt Norlander and I asked college coaches the following question:
Who will be the best college basketball player this season?
| Player (School) | Pct. |
|---|---|
| Thomas Haugh (Florida) | 43% |
| Jeremy Fears (Michigan State) | 15% |
| Tyler Tanner (Vanderbilt) | 14% |
| David Mirkovic (Illinois) | 6% |
| Tyran Stokes (Kansas) | 5% |
| John Blackwell (Duke) | 3% |
| JT Toppin (Texas Tech) | 3% |
| Flory Bidunga (Louisville) | 2% |
Others receiving votes: Elliot Cadeau (Michigan), Silas Demary (UConn), Juke Harris (Tennessee), Caleb Holt (Arizona), Motiejus Krivas (Arizona), Milan Momcilovic (Kentucky), Braylon Mullins (UConn), Dame Sarr (Duke).
Quotes that stood out
On Thomas Haugh
- “Not only is he NBA-ready right now, he’s back and playing against younger guys in most cases. But, his biggest advantage is that he will be running it back with a special group. Florida doesn’t have to start over with a new roster. They have had non-traditional turnover and have guys back who were part of that national championship team.”
- “He’s proven he can perform at the highest level, and what separates him is how complete his game is. He impacts winning in so many different ways — he can score, rebound, defend multiple positions, make plays for teammates and consistently makes the right basketball decisions.”
- “Throwback guy who is a proven winner. Oozing with intangibles. He has gotten better each year in Gainesville.”
On Jeremy Fears
- “Thomas Haugh will likely be the best statistically of all the stars, but I think Jeremy Fears will be the best player. I would be surprised if he wasn’t the most important player on a top-10 team.”
- “He is an elite leader and he makes others around him better. Also, the respect I have for [Michigan State coach Tom] Izzo and how they do things speaks for itself. I believe he will lead them to the second weekend of the NCAA tourney and find his way onto an NBA roster despite the [lack of] traditional high level pro size and attributes.”
On Tyler Tanner
- “Ball-in-hand, high-usage guard who had a terrific season last year. I expect him to have another big-time year and take Vandy to new heights. He should have an edge to him to become a lottery pick next year.”
- “Not going to lie, I had to do some research here, but I was surprised to see that he was first team all-defense in the SEC along with averaging 19.5 ppg and 5.5 assists. Silas [Demary] at UConn or [Jeremy] Fears at MSU would have been my other choices. But they don’t have the same pure scoring impact as Tanner, in my opinion.”
The takeaway
What the results of our poll suggest is that Thomas Haugh is the favorite to be the national player of the year, at least according to college coaches. He got more than 40% of the vote, which is an even higher percentage than Cooper Flagg received when the same question was asked two preseasons ago in our Candid Coaches series.
Combine that with the fact that Haugh is also on the team projected by most to win the national championship — FYI: Florida is No. 1 in the Top 25 And 1 — and, yeah, the coaches we asked are predicting that Haugh will be the first non-freshman to win the CBS Sports National Player of the Year award since Zach Edey in 2024. It’s a byproduct of exactly what I was writing about above — how NIL and revenue-sharing have changed the sport completely.
Ten years ago, there’s no scenario, with few exceptions, where a player/prospect like Haugh would return to college for a fourth season. Sources have indicated to me that the 6-foot-9 forward would’ve been a lottery pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, and possibly a top-10 pick, had he made himself available. Instead, Haugh opted to return to Florida for a payday reportedly worth somewhere between $8 to $10 million, if not more. Worth noting: the fifth pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, Illinois alum Keaton Wagler, will make $9.67 million next season to play in (at least) twice as many games. So Haugh’s decision is financially sensible, if not brilliant. Unless and until the rules change, prospects like him will continue to do what he did.
Michigan State’s Jeremy Fears finished second in our poll, which was unsurprising. He’s one of two CBS Sports Third Team All-Americans who returned to college. The other is Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner, who finished third in our poll. The only person in college basketball more accomplished than them is Texas Tech’s JT Toppin, who was the 2025 Big 12 Player of the Year and a 2026 CBS Sports Second Team All-American. He finished tied for sixth in the poll despite the expectation that he will be unavailable to start the season after suffering a torn ACL in February.
Exactly when Toppin will return remains unclear. Regardless, it speaks to his talent that some coaches believe he’ll prove to be the sport’s best player even in a limited number of appearances.
“JT Toppin would be going for three straight Big 12 Player of the Year [awards] if he doesn’t get hurt at the end of last season,” one coach told us. “Not a harder player to prepare for in college basketball.”
As noted above, freshmen have won national player of the year each of the past two years — first Duke’s Cooper Flagg, then Duke’s Cameron Boozer, each of whom was a one-and-done top-three pick in the NBA Draft. The freshman who received the most votes in this year’s poll is Kansas’ Tyran Stokes, the top-ranked prospect in the Class of 2026, according to 247Sports.
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. 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.
