2025-26 CBS Sports preseason individual awards: Purdue’s Braden Smith earns Player of the Year honors

If we’re handing out the proverbial preseason hardware, that means the college basketball season is just about here. I’m usually ready to burst with anticipation for the first night of the season when we hit the stage and this year is no different. Narratives have been built, expectations have been set for when the games begin on Nov. 3

Let’s add to the stage-setting. It’s time to announce the individual preseason men’s college basketball awards. We’re introducing two categories this season that will bring some more honors and definition around the players who are expected to be some of the very best in the sport. But before we get there, two notes:

1) It’s been a few years now, but CBS Sports no longer names a preseason coach of the year. The award seems flawed in its premise. Our only COY voting comes the week of the Final Four. Last season, Kelvin Sampson won. 

2) Voting is in for our Freshman of the Year, but you’ll have to wait one more day to find out which player won. Cameron Salerno and Isaac Trotter are again teaming up to name a preseason All-Freshman team that will be headlined by the CBS Sports NFOY. 

Today, we unveil the CBS Sports Preseason National Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Transfer of the Year. For defense: It’s a skill too often overlooked and not nearly given enough publicity and credit over the course of a season. A lot of players earn significant minutes and uplift their teams because of how adept they are at stopping other teams and players from scoring. We’re well past due to give someone a nod for their elite defensive prowess in the lead-up to a season. 

As for the TOY (Transfer of the Year), we’ve handed out a postseason award the past two years. Transfer culture is never going away. Some of the best teams this season will turn into the best teams because of their ability to work the portal and make a jump vs. where they otherwise would’ve been. The candidates up for consideration here were 10-deep, at least, and the voting was competitive. 

We’re always accountable for our voting actions here at CBS Sports, so that in mind, scroll to the bottom of this story to see the history of who we have voted the preseason NPOY and who actually wound up winning five months later in those seasons. 

Note: The CBS Sports preseason awards were voted on by college basketball writers at CBS Sports and 247Sports, as well as some broadcasters from CBS/CBS Sports Network.

2025-26 CBS Sports Preseason Player of the Year

Braden Smith | Purdue | PG | 5-11 | Sr.

The most accomplished player returning to college basketball is our pick to be the best player in the sport. Smith was a First Team All-American last March after averaging 15.8 points, 8.7 assists (his 44.1 assist percentage was No. 1 in college hoops), 4.5 rebounds and 2.2 steals for a 24-win Purdue team. Smith is, objectively, the best point guard in college basketball heading into his senior season. Consider: One player, ever, has scored at least 1,300 points, dished 700 assists and had 500 or more rebounds in their first three seasons.

It’s Smith. 

And last season, he became the third Division I player ever (and first since Jason Kidd 30 years prior) to average a minimum of 15.0 points, 8.5 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals. 

A four-year starter at one program, Smith also represents a whittling breed in the modern game. It’s uncommon to have a player opt to stay at one spot for all four years while turning into an NBA prospect, but that’s exactly what’s happening with him. By virtue of having the ball in his hands as much, if not more than, anyone else this season, Smith is well-positioned to make good on all of his preseason accolades.

He’ll get the benefit of playing for one of the best coaches, perhaps the best team—a circumstance Smith himself is mostly responsible for. Keep in mind, Trey Kaufman-Renn is also back for Purdue, giving Smith the rare luxury of teaming up with another All-American. Smith sank 38.1% of his 3-pointers last season, too. Although slight, Smith is an edgy player who works the game from all angles and has an outstanding eye. At EvanMiya.com, Smith easily outrates all other would-be contenders for the most valuable player from an advanced-statistics perspective. If he continues at his career pace, he’ll also beat Bobby Hurley’s record for most assists in a career (1,076), which has stood for 32 years. He needs 319 to get there.

What’s more, if Smith stays healthy he’s going to become the only player in NCAA history with 1,500-plus points, 1,000-plus assists and 500-plus rebounds. THE. FIRST.

And although Smith is listed at 6-feet according to Purdue, his actual measurements would bring back a smaller number. That isn’t stopping us from considering him. If you’d like to know the most recent player under 6-feet to win NPOY, you don’t have to go that far back. Frank Mason, who was listed at 5-11, won the award for Kansas during the 2016-17 season. Before that? Trey Burke, who was a shade under 6 feet, won the honor in 2012-13. 

2025-26 Preseason Defensive Player of the Year

Joseph Tugler | Houston | PF | 6-8 | Jr.

Kelvin Sampson’s team lost some key pieces off the top-seeded UH team that lost on the final possession of the national championship game to Florida. The Cougars are preseason No. 1 in most mainstream metrics and No. 2 in the eyes of many human voters — and Tugler’s defense is a significant reason why. In the past 10 years, Sampson has recruited some of the very best all-around defenders to grace college basketball. Tugler is as good as any of them. His rangy wingspan, quick-twitch response and near-infinite switchability gives Houston a defensive advantage at the 4-spot that almost no other team can equal. If you’re looking for eye-popping stats, you won’t find them in the traditional sense, but he is one of those defense-first players whose skill set is obvious even to a casual viewer. 

The guy they call “JoJo” ranked seventh in block rate last season, per KenPom.com, while hauling in 18% of opponents’ missed shots when he was on the floor. The Monroe, Louisiana, native won the 2024-25 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year award, then made a variety of clutch plays on D en route to Houston’s national title game run. He ranked No. 1 in defensive Box Plus/Minus (7.5, outpacing second-place Jahmai Mashack of Tennessee by a .5 points, a comfortable margin). His defensive rating was 87.0, meaning Houston allowed 87.0 points per 100 possessions when Tugler was on the floor, the most stifling efficiency in the country. One more advanced metric to hammer home the point: Tugler ranks No. 1 in Defensive Bayesian Performance Rating (heading into the season) at EvanMiya, easily outpacing No. 2 (Kansas’ Flory Bidunga). 

That’s a lot of stats to tell you what’s clear if you watch Tugler: He always plays hard and is damn fun to watch doing so. 

2025-26 Preseason Transfer of the Year

Yaxel Lendeborg | Michigan | PF | 6-9 | Gr.

Last season, Duke freshman Cooper Flagg won the NPOY for a lot of reasons, but one thing that particularly boosted his case in the late race vs. Auburn’s Johni Broome was that Flagg led his team in all five major individual statistical categories. But he wasn’t the only guy to do that. Lendeborg, then at UAB, was even more authoritative in his stat-stuffing ventures while playing for the Blazers. The power forward from Pennsauken, New Jersey, averaged 17.7 points, 14.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.7 steals. As a result, he was ranked No. 1 in the portal by CBS Sports and 247 Sports. That didn’t guarantee he’d be our preseason Transfer of the Year, but the voting return gave him a narrow win. 

Michigan has national title hopes thanks to the combination of returning four good players and bringing in another four or five who will give the Wolverines depth, size, athleticism and playmaking. Lendeborg is at the center of the operation. He’ll be able to play the 3, 4 or 5 depending on what Dusty May opts to run. His defense is so good, he was also under consideration for preseason DPOY. If his ability translates from the American Conference to the Big Ten, he’ll be an All-American in March. 

Not bad for a guy whose college career began at Arizona Western — a junior college in Yuma. Now he’s poised to be one of the top players in the sport on a Final Four-capable team in what could be a life-changing season. Lendeborg very nearly went to the NBA, but in opting to stay one more year in college, it’s possible he turns himself into a top-20 pick next June.

Dating back to the 2011-12 season, here are the players we have picked for CBS Sports Preseason National Player of the Year and, in turn, the eventual NPOY (in parentheses). If we nailed it from start to finish, the pick is in bold. 

2011: Jared Sullinger (Anthony Davis)2012: Cody Zeller (Trey Burke)2013: Andrew Wiggins (Doug McDermott)2014: Jahlil Okafor (Frank Kaminsky)2015: Kyle Wiltjer (Denzel Valentine/Buddy Hield)2016: Grayson Allen (Frank Mason III)2017: Jalen Brunson 2018: RJ Barrett (Zion Williamson)2019: Cassius Winston (Obi Toppin)2020: Luka Garza 2021: Drew Timme (Oscar Tshiebwe)2022: Drew Timme (Zach Edey)2023: Zach Edey2024: Mark Sears (Cooper Flagg)