The Champions Classic is considered by many scouts to be the start of the NBA Draft cycle for the forthcoming year. Typically, all of Kansas, Duke and Kentucky have high-level prospects, and Michigan State often joins that party or is at least a highly competitive, veteran team led by a Hall of Fame coach in Tom Izzo.
For a few different reasons, this year’s event didn’t have that same level of spark.
The organizers moved the event late in the calendar, to the third week of the season, which meant most of the players involved had already played tough games, therefore making it the second time that evaluators were seeing a player against difficult competition. Injuries also subdued the event. Kentucky is currently without potential first-round pick Jayden Quaintance and potential draft pick Jaland Lowe. Then over the weekend, news broke that Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, the potential No. 1 pick in next year’s draft, was suffering from a hamstring injury. He ended up not playing, taking away much of the Jayhawks’ offensive firepower.
This resulted in a pair of double-digit victories for Michigan State and Duke. It felt like Duke didn’t even play at its best and Kentucky had bigger problems than Michigan State had answers. Still, there were at least a couple of things to take away from the event, even if it disappointed.
Let’s talk through that, as well as everything else I’m hearing from NBA scouts as we hurtle toward Feast Week games over the Thanksgiving holiday. (Scouts spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about the prospects.)
Cam Boozer’s decision-making is impressive, but questions linger
Boozer, a potential top-three pick from Duke, was one of the several prospects who didn’t perform up to expectations in the Champions Classic, even after posting another monster stat line of 18 points, nine rebounds and five assists.
On some level, we’re grading Boozer on a higher plane because of how Peterson, AJ Dybantsa and Caleb Wilson have started. And indeed, on a box-score basis, Boozer has ticked the boxes better than any of them so far due to his ridiculous performances against low-major competition. But in the two games Duke has played against real length — Texas in the opener and Kansas on Tuesday — he has struggled with his efficiency. His finishing at the rim has been the main cause for concern.
Boozer looks like a player who has been 6-foot-9 and 250 pounds for quite a long time in high school and has been able to power up through contact against anyone without much resistance. Instead of working on that part of his game, Boozer began to expand his game outward to the perimeter by working on his jumper and handle. Those skill improvements are what have made him a special prospect. However, now that he’s playing in college and is not the most vertically explosive player at that size, he’s struggling with the increased length that he faces at the rim while still trying to play a bully-ball style.
This play below against Kansas is a perfect example. Boozer is on the right side of the court and tries to put his shoulder into Flory Bidunga to drive him backward before throwing up a touch floater at the rim while Bryson Tiller rotates across in help.
Bidunga is a good player who will likely play in the NBA at some point, but he’s also not exactly the biggest guy Boozer will face in the NBA. Boozer isn’t using his footwork well enough to separate on his gathers and drives right now. He looks a bit stiff when trying to separate from his man when he attempts to create a shot for himself, either on the block or in face-up situations. I had him at 6-of-12 shooting either at the rim or out of post-ups after he went 2 of 7 in such settings against Texas. It’s an issue that scouts are monitoring when comparing him to other prospects, and they want to see him create more separation against players who are just as big and athletic as he is.
Having said that, Boozer did so many other things well against the Jayhawks. Kansas was doubling him almost every time he touched the ball inside of 15 feet, and he took what was available and consistently found the open man. Boozer’s passing has long been underrated, and it makes it hard to put two players on him to stop his drives when you know he’s going to be able to pick apart the defense, creating shots for his teammates. His ball movement across the court is terrific and keeps opposing defenses in rotation due to his quick decisions.
Duke is also experimenting with an inverted Boozer-Isaiah Evan ball screen, which could become one of the best two-man actions in college basketball this season if the Blue Devils can add layers of movement to it. Evans is one of the best shooters in the country and lethal coming off ghost screens or slips, where he acts like he’s going up to set a screen before sliding across to the opposite side of the 3-point line for an open shot.
Here’s one the Blue Devils ran at the end of the first half. Cam’s brother, Cayden Boozer, cuts across to the opposite corner right as Evans comes up to slip a screen for Cam Boozer, replacing Cayden Boozer on the left wing and leaving Kohl Rosario and Melvin Council Jr. confused.
You can add so many wrinkles to this action, with flare screens on the backside to get Evans even looser or backdoor rolls with Evans if teams overplay it. But the part that makes it so difficult to guard is that you can’t just switch the action with a guard, because Cam Boozer will then have a significant power advantage and be able to work his way into the rim for an easy shot over a smaller player — shots that he has had zero issues with thus far.
Most scouts believe Boozer is clearly one of the best players in the country and is impressive for his age. In the race for the top pick, I get the sense that the NBA community is more impressed by the shot creation and advantages of Peterson and Dybantsa. There’s plenty of time for that to change, and the well-rounded nature of Boozer’s game as a rebounder, passer and team defender means that he has fans across front offices, particularly among those in the analytics community. For Boozer to reach that highest echelon for evaluators, he will need to show that he can separate from his man consistently to create easier shots for himself.
Biggest winner: Houston guard Kingston Flemings
Along with Duke, Houston is viewed as the most talented team in college basketball. With an elite freshman class surrounded by terrific returnees, the Cougars’ roster is balanced with experience, veteran ballhandlers and scorers, tough interior defenders and intriguing upside swings who could develop quickly throughout the season.
While the NBA Draft hype has mostly focused on skilled big man Chris Cenac Jr., another freshman has emerged as potentially one of the best guard prospects in the class. Five-star freshman guard Kingston Flemings has been Houston’s best player, posting a 22-point, seven-assist game Sunday against No. 22 Auburn that solidified what scouts saw from him earlier in the season and preseason.
Listed at 6-4 and 190 pounds, Flemings is a rocket ship on the court, a blur of speed and blow-by ability who seems to live to force defenses into help rotations. He’s one of the few guards I’ve seen across high-major college basketball this season who doesn’t often need a screen to get by his man, and he has the rare ability to turn on the accelerator with a quick first step and get a paint touch. And if you decide to switch a big on him after a ball screen? Auburn tried to do that, and the results largely went Flemings’ way, as you can see with this blow-by against KeShawn Murphy.
Flemings also has counters. He loves to get into the midrange area at the elbows and uses his speed incredibly well to threaten rim attempts before stopping on a dime and pulling up. Auburn put Elyjah Freeman — a really good, long defender — on Flemings late in the game, and Flemings’ ability to get downhill, force Freeman backward and stop to elevate was about as good as you’re going to find in college this season outside of Peterson.
The consensus among NBA scouts who spoke with The Athletic after this performance was that Flemings looks poised to be a one-and-done with potential to go quite high in the draft. The race behind potential top-five picks Peterson and Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr. at guard is considered wide open, and while scouts certainly want to gather more information, a few with whom I’ve spoken believe Flemings’ ceiling in the draft could be as the third guard selected.
Those scouts have mentioned three areas that they’ll be tracking. First, they want to see exactly how Flemings’ shot settles from distance. He’s 4 of 10 from 3 so far this season, and scouts want to see how comfortable he is both catching and shooting from 3 as well as hitting pull-ups. Second, scouts want to learn how he sees the court as a passer. He had the potential for even more than the seven assists against Auburn, but many of them weren’t complex looks. He’s an unselfish player, but he has moments when he’ll leave his feet and get in the air seemingly without a plan and get stuck in ball-screen situations, as opposed to reading his progressions and staying steady. Finally, scouts want to see how his defense progresses, as he hasn’t been overly physical on that end at the point of attack and has been involved in some miscommunication errors. Given Houston’s reputation and Kelvin Sampson’s track record of developing defenders, this will get sorted.
Few players have helped themselves more in the eyes of scouts than Flemings has so far. And if he’s this good already, it’s a scary proposition for the rest of the country — the Cougars are already ranked No. 1.
Dybantsa continues to make strides late in games
Dybantsa played in what will likely be his toughest game until January on Saturday, facing off against No. 4 Connecticut. The Huskies are experienced and tough, as six of the seven UConn players who played at least 10 minutes are in at least their third college season, and most have been in Dan Hurley’s system for three years. Additionally, Connecticut’s offensive scheme is extremely complex to guard, giving scouts a strong context to understand where Dybantsa’s defense is. The UConn coaching staff is considered one of the best and most detail-oriented in terms of game prep and scouting.
In the first half, all of that came to a head. The Huskies did a tremendous job wrapping up Dybantsa. The best straight-line driver in the country, Dybantsa struggled to find his way to the rim because of timely digs and stunts from UConn help defenders. He shot 1 of 6 from the field, scored four points, turned the ball over three times and looked out of sorts.
But just like in BYU’s opener against Villanova, Dybantsa and his coaching staff figured it out. In the second half, Dybantsa dropped 21 points and dominated the game on the offensive end. What changed? The answer is two-fold.
First, BYU’s staff adjusted who was next to Dybantsa on the perimeter before his drives. Instead of Rob Wright III, whom UConn was helping off, the team often had a sharpshooter such as Dawson Baker, Tyler Mrus or Richie Saunders next to Dybantsa to make it harder for the Huskies to clog driving lanes. The play below is a prime example, in which you can see how UConn wing Alex Karaban wants to help off and stop Dybantsa from getting to his spot from the elbow, but feels like he can’t leave Mrus, who hit 38 percent of his 3s on over six attempts per game last year at Idaho.
Dybantsa is also improving at processing in-game information, understanding where the help is coming from and finding driving lanes. Instead of recklessly driving into the paint, he’s being more patient and working his way into more dangerous areas. In this example, BYU has Wright and Mrus next to Dybantsa on the perimeter. Instead of attacking Jayden Ross’ top foot and attacking to the left (where Silas DeMary Jr. is creeping into the middle for help already), Dybantsa pauses and hits a hesitation dribble into a crossover to open up Ross to drive right, where Karaban again can’t help off the shooter in the corner.
These might seem like small nuances, but they matter immensely and give scouts a sense of a few things. First, Dybantsa can solve defenses in the run of play. Second, with how much wider driving lanes are in the NBA game and with the level of shooting that will surround Dybantsa, scouts can see how difficult it will be to slow him down when you can’t send help off elite floor-spacers. Finally, Dybantsa showed again that he’s not afraid of the moment, as he led BYU back from a 20-point deficit to nearly steal a victory.
Yes, the shooting remains an open question. And, yes, Dybantsa needs to impact the game more consistently across the board. He’s not a selfish player, but we haven’t seen many high-level, advanced reads yet. He ended Saturday’s game with zero assists (although he did have four potential ones I tracked that his teammates just missed). Defensively, he’s a bit late right now off the ball in rotation and when he’s dealing with guarding off-ball action. He hasn’t made an impact as a weak-side rim protector and hasn’t disrupted many passes
From a tools perspective, though, the UConn game continued to show that Dybantsa’s ceiling is through the roof. More importantly, it continued to show he’s developing his game as a scorer.
Other notes
• Illinois is loaded with interesting prospects, from the Ivišić twins in the frontcourt to David Mirkovic as a playmaking, rebounding big man to Andrej Stojaković as a scoring wing. But 6-6 freshman wing Keaton Wagler, an under-recruited wing from Missouri who was ranked outside of the top 250 nationally in the 247Sports Composite rankings this year, has received the most buzz. Wagler does everything off the ball and has terrific instincts on the court. He has good touch from the perimeter and midrange, passes well, makes good decisions and is excellent at crashing the glass. Scouts question whether or not he’s a one-and-done due to his skinny frame. How he holds up in Big Ten play will ultimately dictate his draft cycle. But his name is hot, and several scouts have brought him up as an off-the-radar riser who could feature in first-round discussions later in the year.
• A couple of Connecticut players also stood out against BYU. The aforementioned Karaban has returned each of the last two years after debating turning pro and looks terrific overall this season. He’s seemingly taking on a leadership role and continues to take steps forward as the program’s most experienced player. He also dropped 21 points while shooting 8 of 11 from the field, including four 3s, against BYU. Demary had a terrific game, too, scoring 21 points and dishing out seven assists while also playing tough defense on Wright and playing strong in help defense. But starting center Tarris Reed Jr. has impressed the scouts the most. In an underwhelming class of big men, Reed has been quite productive on his way to 20 points and nine rebounds per game in Connecticut’s first three games, including a 21-point outing against the Cougars. He’s massive at 265 pounds with a listed 6-11 height. More than that, he also has long arms and moves his feet far better than people expect. He plays well within Connecticut’s defensive scheme, where the Huskies will ask him to show and recover in ball screens regularly. He has fluid feet on the block mixed with nice touch. Don’t be surprised to see him selected in June’s draft, with a couple of scouts seeing potential for him to go somewhere between No. 25 and No. 40 if his season continues along this trajectory.
• Duke needs to rip the Band-Aid off and allow Cayden Boozer to steal more of Caleb Foster’s minutes. It’s not an accident that Duke won Boozer’s 17 minutes on the court versus Kansas and lost Foster’s minutes by one. Even before Tuesday, per CBB Analytics, Duke had been 21.5 points better per 100 possessions with Boozer in the game as compared to its average, as opposed to just a plus-3.5 with Foster in. Boozer is a consummate floor general out there and does a terrific job of organizing the offense and making quick decisions. Duke’s assist rate goes up by 8.3 percent with Boozer in the game and down by 9.8 percent with Foster, who is more of a combo guard. Boozer is the best guard on the team and is a perfect complement to Evans and Dame Sarr on the wing.
• Kentucky’s performance in its 83-66 Champions Classic loss to Michigan State left its coach, Mark Pope, somewhat speechless. As someone who has been a fan of Pope’s offensive architecture going back to his days at BYU — his teams have finished in the top 25 in Ken Pom’s offensive efficiency metric four times in the six years since he took the job in Provo back in 2019 — I don’t think I’ve seen a more disorganized offensive structure from one of his teams. Without Lowe, their lead guard, and starting three questionable shooters in Brandon Garrison, Mouhamed Dioubate and Otega Oweh, it felt like the Wildcats could not get paint touches regularly. They shot 35.1 percent from the field and 23.3 percent from 3, and the team’s 41.2 effective field goal percentage was the second-worst mark of the Pope era to this point.
I think Kentucky will get better as the season goes on, as long as Pope proves flexible and willing to make adjustments. I would start by moving Malachi Moreno into the starting lineup over Garrison at center. Last year, the Wildcats also didn’t have many players who could consistently break down defenders on their own, but they did have Amari Williams at center. They used Williams as an offensive hub at the top of the key and let him make plays as a passer and decision-maker. Moreno is capable of running similar actions, as he’s terrific in the high post and as a ball-screen passer. The team doesn’t have to give him the carte blanche it gave Williams — that would be a lot to put on a freshman’s shoulders — but having him out there would likely help and allow them to become more creative on offense. I don’t think it’s an accident that Kentucky lost Moreno’s minutes by only one point but lost Garrison’s by 16.
• Michigan State finally got hot from 3 on Tuesday after a dreadfully cold start to its season. The Spartans drilled 11 of 22 from distance, including four from big men Jesse McCulloch and Jaxon Kohler. I also thought Jeremy Fears Jr., the older brother of New Orleans Pelicans’ draft pick Jeremiah Fears, dominated this game by erasing Denzel Aberdeen on defense and dishing out 13 assists. Ultimately, scouts don’t have a lot of enthusiasm about most of Michigan State’s upperclass players for the 2026 draft. But I’ve heard some variation of excitement from NBA personnel about all of Cam Ward, Jordan Scott and even McCulloch long-term. Ward is the one they have their eye on most, though, as a superb athlete with length.