Tthe 2025-26 college basketball season is going to be defined by the return of star freshmen to the landscape. The past few seasons have seen teams dominate with veteran-laden squads thanks to the transfer portal, but the freshmen class has sprinkled stars throughout the country to help power teams inside the AP Top 25.
The headliners have been the likes of BYU's A.J. Dybantsa and Duke's Cameron Boozer, but one underrated star on the rise is Illinois' Keaton Wagler, who poured in 46 points to help the Fighting Illini take down Purdue on Saturday. Wagler is firmly on the rise as we take a look at the latest college basketball headlines in this week's edition of FanSided's Stock Watch.
College Basketball Stock Watch: Rising
Keaton Wagler
It was easy for scouts to identify Boozer, Dybantsa, and Darryn Peterson as potential stars since they had been on the radar since dominating their high school days. Illinois' Wagler was certainly not, ranking 144th in his high school class despite being a four-star recruit as the top shooting guard in the state of Kansas, landing in Brad Underwood's recruiting class as a backup before eventually seizing a starting job.
The Fighting Illini have taken off since Wagler began being more assertive on the offensive end in December, going 11-1 in their last 12 games as Wagler has scored in double figures in all of those contests. Most mock drafts now project Wagler as a potential lottery pick, which is a stunning rise for a player who was largely unheralded as a recruit, and if he continues to ascend Illinois could find themselves in the national title conversation.
Texas Tech
One of the bigger results from last weekend was Texas Tech's 90-86 win over Houston, which got a 42-point outburst from freshman Kingston Flemings, but the deeper Red Raiders' group snapped the Cougars' 11-game winning streak. The win not only avenged an earlier loss to the Cougars in Houston but gave Texas Tech a second monumental win this year to pair with their victory over Duke at Madison Square Garden in December.
Having a star senior in JT Toppin certainly is a big help for Texas Tech, whose four losses this season have come against teams ranked inside the Top 15 of the poll. Most experts have assumed the Big 12 title race will come down to Arizona and Houston in the end, but the Red Raiders' win on Saturday puts them right back in the conversation.
St. John's
It took a little bit for them to get going after a tough non-conference schedule but St. John's is starting to gel at the right time. Saturday's win at Xavier gave Rick Pitino his 900th career victory marked the Red Storm's 11th win in their past 13 games, helping them re-enter the Top 25 after falling out in late December.
There are still questions about the fact this team doesn't have a true ball handler on its roster, but the front line of Zuby Ejiofor and Bryce Hopkins has proven to be quite hard to stop for most Big East opponents. A date with No. 2 UCONN at Madison Square Garden looms next Friday but it looks like St. John's is going to be ready to meet the moment in what could be one of the most highly anticipated games in the month of February.
Marquee Matchups
The schedule has been a bit unlucky for college basketball fans, who know that the best teams reside in a handful of conferences but haven't had a chance to see too many of them match up with each other yet. That changes in spades this week, which saw Arizona survive a second half surge from BYU on Monday and has the following elite matchups on tap: Nebraska-Michigan, Michigan-Michigan State, BYU-Kansas, Kentucky-Arkansas, Gonzaga-Saint Mary's, Alabama-Florida and Illinois-Nebraska.
Most of these games are taking place on Saturday, but both of Michigan's Top 10 clashes take place during the week while the Illinois-Nebraska showdown caps off the week for ranked games. It may be a bit early for judgment week but these critical contests could significantly shape the state of the sport entering February.
College Basketball Stock Watch: Falling
Seton Hall
Things are getting a bit dire for Seton Hall, which has lost four games in a row after entering the AP Top 25 a few weeks ago. While falling to UCONN and St. John's is understandable since those two teams are both better than the Pirates, losing to Butler and especially on the road to DePaul has done major damage to what had been a compelling at large case for Shaheen Holloway's team.
Even though all six of Seton Hall's losses qualify in the top two quadrants for NET purposes, they are down to 56th in that metric and already missed one chance to score a signature win over one of the Big East's top dogs. Righting the ship at home against Xavier and Marquette this week is critical for Seton Hall ahead of next week's trip to fellow NCAA Tournament contender Villanova.
Purdue
It feels like at least one supposed title contender a week is having an existential crisis lately, with the Boilermakers taking that honor after an 0-2 week. Purdue got tripped up at the buzzer by bubbler UCLA before Wagler put on an absolute show at Mackey Arena, with his 46 points setting a record for the most a visiting player has scored on Purdue in the history of the building.
The two defeats dropped the Boilermakers eight spots in the poll to No. 12 and leave them staring up at the league's other four top contenders (Michigan, Nebraska, Michigan State and Illinois) in the Big Ten standings. Purdue had been playing a bit tight before those losses, narrowly winning against Iowa and USC before dropping their two matchups last week, but a manageable two weeks ahead gives Matt Painter's team a chance to stabilize before they get a shot at Nebraska on Feb. 10.
Oklahoma
Even though the SEC isn't as strong as it was last season, the league is still deep enough to swallow up some potential bubble contenders. One early victim is Oklahoma, which made the NCAA Tournament a year ago and went 10-3 in non-conference play, who now sit at the bottom of the SEC standings riding a six-game skid.
There were certainly questions about how good the Sooners actually were since their best non-conference wins came against Oklahoma State and Wake Forest, but they did play Nebraska very tough and have enough talent on their roster to be a bubble team. Losing on the road to South Carolina and Mississippi State (by 19) isn't a good sign since neither of those teams looks capable of making the tournament, leaving 11-9 Oklahoma with a lot of work to do if they want to get back into the bubble conversation.
Eligibility
The NCAA has had a lot of controversy surrounding its eligibility decisions this season, granting eligiblity to players who played professionally in Europe as teenagers, former G-Leaguers (like Louisville's Landon Johnson) and NBA Draft Picks who hadn't signed professional contracts (like Baylor's James Nnaji). We have reached the peak of absurdity as Alabama was able to bring back Charles Bediako, who played for them for two years between 2021 and 2023, after he filed a lawsuit asking for his final semester of eligibility to be restored.
Bediako received an injunction and is currently playing for Alabama, which could set a very bad precedent for the sport since he played in the G League for three years and didn't have a ton of success, leading him to push to go back to school to re-establish his basketball stock for potential NBA teams. If the courts rule that Bediako is allowed to play, it will open the floodgates of G-Leaguers and undrafted players to attempt to return to school, which will make the quaint notion of student-athletes disappear for good as the NCAA would essentially become the third rung of the professional basketball pyramid behind the NBA and G-League.