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.

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.

If you could have any players from the 2026 class, who would they be?

(Note: Two coaches picked two players.)

Why Jordan Smith?

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.”

Why Tyran Stokes?

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?”

Why Arafan Diane?

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.”

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.”

Best of the rest

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.”

Do you think a fifth year of eligibility should be allowed?

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.

The arguments for a fifth year

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.”

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.”

The arguments against a fifth year

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.”

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)