Given the increasing lack of continuity in college basketball, projecting the first-year impact of newcomers is more difficult than ever. Freshmen have always been volatile, but that's especially true now that they are four to five years younger than many of the upperclassmen they are up against. And though transfers are perceived to be more of a sure thing, there is no guarantee their production will carry over from one program to the next.

The following ranking of impact newcomers isn't a mock draft, nor is it a rehash of the 2025 recruiting or transfer rankings . It is weighted almost entirely on expected impact during the 2025-26 college basketball season.

To come up with this list, we spoke with college coaches and NBA scouts, looked at box scores of exhibition games and "secret

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