There’s no question that at the start of the college basketball season, it was gonna be a three-horse race to be the number one overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft. However, with March Madness rapidly approaching, it looks like it might be solidified. Darryn Peterson from Kansas has likely set himself up to be the consensus number 1 overall pick while only playing 26 minutes a game in 11 games this season due to injuries. It might be too early, and things might change, but AJ Dybansta and Cam Boozer don’t come close to Peterson. It is pretty clear that Peterson is the best scorer in the country, and no one can even come close to his production at all three levels. Even though Dybansta and Boozer do outscore him slightly, the tape doesn’t lie. I still worry about the true top potential that Peterson has. It’s hard to know which of his injuries are real, and from time to time, it seems as if he hates basketball. However, I think these concerns will go away once he is drafted and plays his first game. Since I believe Peterson is easily the top pick unless under some extreme conditions, the race is going to be for who will be the 2nd overall pick.
Being an NBA player’s son has a lot of pressure that comes with it, but Boozer is living up to the expectations. On the court, everything he does just looks easy, and that’s not from crazy athleticism, it’s iq and physical strength. He’s averaging 24 and 10 on very efficient scoring. I don’t see lots of flaws in his game. I don’t think he will be impactful instantly in the NBA like Peterson would. However, I do think his game would be way more beneficial for a contending NBA team. He doesn’t need the ball in his hands to be effective, and he knows how to find the right spots to score.
Even though coming out of high school, I saw Dybansta as unguardable and clearly one of the top players in the country, now I don’t even think he deserves a lottery pick for his current talent. The stats don’t lie, he can’t perform when playing good teams, and this isn’t just a one-off thing, it’s almost every time. If you wanna be a top prospect, you can’t just ghost in big games. He may be averaging almost 24 points a game and putting up a season high of 4,3 but I disregard all of that when looking at his individual performances. Most recently, against Arizona (#1), he scored 24 points, which may look good, but he shot 24 times, and half his points were from free throws. At 6’9 and being the best athlete on the court, you have to shoot better than 25% from the field. This trend has been apparent throughout the whole season. In games against Texas Tech, Miami, and Wisconsin, he scored less than 20 points on less than 35% from the field. I would give him the benefit of the doubt if he was doing other things on the court during these games, but he didn’t get more than 8 rebounds in any of these games and had 3 turnovers in each.
Well, people may say I am just cherry-picking stats from bad games, but the film doesn’t lie. Against teams like Utah and Eastern Washington, he looks like a bouncier version of Cooper Flagg, but against real competition, he looks like a worse Ace Bailey. That comparison is really not far off. Bailey had similar bad performances against top-ranked teams but was dominant against bad teams. For me, giving him this comparison is generous, with the fact that Bailey was a top 5 pick and the tremendous amount of talent the 2026 draft class will have.
Currently, Peterson should go 1, Boozer should go 2, and Dybansta will probably go 3, but I think he really shouldn’t be a lottery pick. There are so many other talented freshmen that could go over Dybansta like Caleb Wilson, Brayden Burries, and Nate Ament. But currently, they aren’t in the race to be the top pick. So even though the narrative might be a three-horse race, for me, it’s between the two of Peterson and Boozer, and Dybansta is a fraud.
