The first weekend of the NCAA Tournament has come and gone. All of the top-10 players on my 2026 NBA Draft board played on teams that made the Big Dance, although two (North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson and Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr.) did not play because of injury.
It was a loaded bracket of talent for NBA scouts to check out, with many prospects turning in massive performances to help themselves and their teams move forward.
Below, we’ll break down the top four prospects who played in March Madness and offer scouting notes on 15 others. We’ll start with the player who’s No. 1 on my board …
Dybantsa shows why he should be the top pick
Given that the NCAA Tournament often acts as a final exam for players, it’s interesting to see how players grow and improve throughout the year. And in Dybantsa’s case, the areas where he’s gotten better are undeniable. He was a flawed player entering college and will also exit with things he has to work on, but he showed this season that his ceiling remains incredibly high.
Texas coach Sean Miller deployed a sharp game plan in the Longhorns’ 79-71 first-round win over BYU, sending a double team every time Dybantsa would catch in the post or drive to the rim. Typically, Matas Vokietaitis would help off the Cougars center to clog the lane on Dybantsa’s drives. Then, on his ball-screens, Texas would always send two players to the ball and blitz him to try and force it out of his hands. This strategy was effective because BYU didn’t have enough firepower around Dybantsa, yet the star freshman still dropped 35 points and 10 rebounds. It also led to a fun mid-game interview with Miller, when he was asked how to slow Dybantsa down.
“I don’t think we can,” Miller said after Dybantsa’s first 14 points. “We have to do the best job we can, and we can’t accumulate fouls that won’t allow our team to be the best we can be. We’re trying hard; I’m not giving in. But there’s just very little you can do with that right there.”
The flashes of superstardom in this game were exceptional. Dybantsa’s shot-making from the midrange was absurd. He knocked down multiple contested jumpers by using his entire athletic 6-foot-9 frame to elevate over the top of defenders and knock down shots. There were shots, like the one you’ll see below, that I think only he could make in the entirety of college basketball.
AJ Dybantsa fades from midrange 🎯#MarchMadness @BYUMBB pic.twitter.com/QRX2xVauzD
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 19, 2026
Dybantsa also showcased his ability to get into the lane and use terrific footwork on his gathers toward the rim to get defenders off-balance. He utilized everything from Eurosteps to step-throughs to up-and-unders to find ways to get to the rim. Dybantsa’s patience and footwork in ball screens and drives got significantly better throughout the season. Last summer with Team USA at the Under-19 World Cup and early in this season, teams could bother him by sending two players to the ball or by digging into his drives. Oftentimes, he would simply act as a downhill freight train toward the rim and throw up a highly contested shot while trying to draw contact. His decision-making is still not perfect in all these instances, but the growth from then to now is clear. He has a better understanding of how to play off two feet, how to play on balance and how to use his massive frame to get more efficient shots or to draw fouls.
Here’s a great example, where instead of just flying into the help defender, he uses his left foot as his pivot foot, stops, allows the Texas player to fall for the fake, hits the step-through and then uses all his length to get to the rim to finish.
AJ steps through for ANOTHER tough bucket 🪣#MarchMadness @BYUMBB pic.twitter.com/W0uEC5Mwkk
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 20, 2026
We didn’t see much of the passing that Dybantsa showcased during the second half of the year in this game, as he averaged 4.3 assists in his final 22 games before this one. But we did see that he occasionally still struggles with his decision-making on drives when he faces those doubles. He turned it over five times against Texas and had a couple of poor reads in which he did not see where help defenders were coming from. The flashes of court vision were there in the second half of the year, but he still averaged 3.5 turnovers in his final 13 games. Given the growth we saw throughout the year, I believe we can project him improving in this regard. But it’s going to take some time and patience.
The bigger issues that I have with Dybantsa come on defense. We didn’t quite see enough from him in terms of his understanding how to rotate across the court on defense and make an impact player on that end. All of the tools are there for Dybantsa to be an excellent defensive player. He’s long and athletic, strong and physical and doesn’t back down from contact. But he needs to fix his tendency to hop into his defensive slides as opposed to just sliding along the ground to maintain his athleticism and balance. He also needs to showcase better recognition for how the opposing team is trying to attack, and he needs to get to his help rotations quicker. I’ve broken down that tape several times this year on my Game Theory Podcast; here are a few of the full-game breakdowns for you to watch.
But I’ve landed (for now) on him as the No. 1 prospect because Dybantsa’s highs are the highest of any player in the class, and his issues are the most fixable. He’s not as consistent as Cameron Boozer right now, but Boozer’s lack of vertical pop at around 6-foot-8 — in conjunction with his questionable pull-up game off more than one dribble — makes me wonder how close we are to his ceiling already. And while I don’t think we’ve seen the best of Darryn Peterson this year, Dybantsa’s tools at 6-9 with explosive athleticism and power now blended with a more consistent brand of patience are more impressive than Peterson’s at 6-6 as a similarly scoring-inclined player.
Part of the reason that I had Dybantsa at No. 3 entering the year behind Peterson and Boozer was that I thought he stagnated a bit at Utah Prep last year and didn’t showcase much in-season growth. But he showed at BYU that he’s not done working and growing as a player. I appreciated that even though Dybantsa came into the season as a 20-point-per-game scoring machine, he improved where he needed and became a 27-point, four-assist-per-game dominant force.
The Darryn Peterson experience at Kansas left just about everybody confused. (William Purnell / Imagn Images)
Peterson leaves scouts with many questions
We’ve dug into the Darryn Peterson injury situation enough this year, so I just want to talk about what we saw from him on the court, especially since he played at least 28 minutes in each of his last nine games. He logged 37 minutes while dropping 28 points in Kansas’ first-round win against Cal Baptist and then had 21 points in 36 minutes in the Jayhawks’ loss to St. John’s on Sunday.
My biggest takeaway is that I don’t know exactly what to take away from the whole Peterson experience. He is undeniably a massively talented player who is a shoo-in to go somewhere in the top five of the draft as long as his medical checks come back clear. Yet, even his 49 points in two tournament games raised questions about what he does well, what his strengths are and whether he was utilized properly this season by Bill Self.
I raise that final question about Peterson after the St. John’s game. My opinion on Peterson entering the season was that he was a dynamic combo guard who could play both on and off the ball. He showed an immense amount of improvement as a ball-screen playmaker and passer in his final high school season at Prolific Prep (here’s some tape that I broke down explaining what I saw). But this season at Kansas, Self used him almost exclusively off the ball. In the end, I think that was a mistake.
I can understand the thought process behind why Self played Peterson more off the ball. First, Peterson being in and out of the lineup had to make it more difficult to integrate him as a primary ballhandler. Second, the team’s roster construction was an issue from a spacing and shooting perspective. By putting Peterson more on the ball, you’re taking the ball out of Melvin Council Jr.’s hands. Given that Council isn’t a great shooter from distance, teams could play off him and crowd the paint even more.
But when we finally saw Self put the ball in Peterson’s hands in the second half against St. John’s, it was a great example of why the team needed to lean into giving its best player the ball more often, instead of running him more off pindowns and flares to create shots. Kansas’ offense flowed much more smoothly with Peterson running the show. The Jayhawks averaged 0.703 points per possession in the first half and 1.3 ppp in the second half. Even though he finished the game with zero assists, Peterson made several passes that led to hockey assists or created open shots that his teammates missed. He finished eight possessions out of ball screens or dribble-handoffs in the second half as a scorer.
From an NBA standpoint, it was a good reminder that even if Peterson didn’t shoot particularly strong percentages this year (he finished at 43.8 percent overall), he’s still a remarkably gifted offensive player who didn’t play in the role expected of him this season. Still, his performance deserves scrutiny even accounting for the role and his health. Peterson didn’t consistently create paint touches. He was a very perimeter-based scorer, and multiple NBA scouts texted me over the weekend asking if I was worried about his tendencies as a shot “chucker.” I’m less worried about his passing numbers than many, but scouts have brought up the fact that he posted just 38 assists on the season.
Peterson could end up anywhere from No. 1 to No. 5 on my board. There are clearly still some medicals that need reviewing and some intel NBA front offices must dig into before they feel comfortable with where they rank him. But it’s not just the strange health situation that has scouts’ minds in a pretzel right now regarding Peterson.
Acuff is utterly dominant despite defensive issues
Every time I talk to an NBA scout or executive about Arkansas guard Darius Acuff Jr., the conversation inevitably turns to his defense or his size (he’s listed at 6-3, 190 pounds). Those concerns are valid, and it’s become a popular talking point among Acuff that the NBA doesn’t play defense anyway. The reality is that it’s harder than ever to defend in the NBA because of the modern uptick in shooting leading to larger swaths of space that teams need to cover. Additionally, the rules don’t favor defenders or the point of attack. Yet, the top-five teams in defensive rating are the five NBA teams with the most wins this season.
Defense does matter in the NBA, which is why teams have some trepidation about Acuff. He’s been bad on that end this season, and the Razorbacks’ second-round win against High Point didn’t assuage any concerns. Watching diminutive High Point guard Rob Martin repeatedly get by him or maintain his advantage in ball screens consistently was another eye-opener. Acuff isn’t particularly fluid through his hips and tends to get clipped on screens, and his effort in recovery can also be lacking. He’s also not that impactful away from the ball. To become a positive NBA player worthy of a top-10 pick, Acuff has to be an outlier star offensive creator in the vein of a Tyrese Maxey, Jalen Brunson or Damian Lillard.
The good news for Acuff? We’re running out of reasons to think he won’t be that outlier star offensive creator. I’m not sure I’ve ever watched a more dominant performance in college basketball from a freshman guard who’s still a teenager (he turns 20 in November). I don’t think he has the athletic upside of Lillard, Donovan Mitchell or Derrick Rose, but he’s more advanced with his footwork and overall polish than any guard I’ve seen at this level at this age in the decade that I’ve been doing this.
Acuff does an incredible job of getting into the paint, using his frame to shield defenders and maintaining his advantage. He can make shots going to his right or left from the midrange or from 3. He can play off two feet and keep his balance or go up off one foot if he has to beat a rotating defender toward the rim. He makes floaters. He can hit fadeaways if he needs a bit of space to shoot over the top of defenders, or he can speed up his release if he needs to do so from 3. Acuff never seems off-balance, which allows him to consistently threaten the defense from essentially everywhere within 30 feet of the rim.
Can Acuff be the kind of star offensive creator who doesn’t just score but also elevates another star next to him? Removing Stephen Curry from the equation, I’m highly skeptical that a small guard can lead an NBA team to a title. But that doesn’t mean they’re not important or needle-movers for organizations. The best star guards on title teams — think Kyrie Irving, Jamal Murray and Kyle Lowry in recent memory, and plenty of others in the past — are comfortable both on and off the ball, make good decisions, shoot it and can take over when needed. Acuff has shown he can do all these things.
Yes, Acuff needs to get better on defense. That’s undeniable. But his offensive game is also undeniable and makes him a truly special prospect. I dislike small guards more than just about any evaluator that I know. And I still can’t help but have Acuff at No. 5 on my board. The offensive firepower is just too overwhelming. He’s as complete an offensive guard to enter the NBA as I’ve seen in a while.
Cameron Boozer has led Duke to the Sweet 16. (ob Donnan / Imagn Images)
Boozer continues to produce; skeptics remain
I’m sure Cameron Boozer feels like there’s nothing more he can do to help his standing with NBA scouts. Boozer averaged 20.5 points, 12 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.5 steals, a block and shot 52.4 percent from the field in leading Duke to the Sweet 16.Yet, the tenor of the conversations I had with scouts turned far more to how Siena and TCU seemed to bother him, after Virginia made him uncomfortable in the ACC tournament final.
On some level, I understand the consternation. There were moments throughout these last three games that showcased Boozer’s limitations athletically, particularly his lack of vertical explosiveness. Virginia center Ugonna Onyenso’s length caused Boozer significant issues around the basket in a 3-of-17 shooting performance. Both Siena and TCU found ways to frustrate him into five turnovers in each game with timely double teams. I’ve heard people compare Boozer to a younger Nikola Jokić; the key difference is that Jokić is around 6-foot-10 without shoes with a 7-4 wingspan, while Boozer is expected to measure around 6-8 without shoes with a 7-foot wingspan. That’s a massive size difference in NBA terms.
Boozer is finishing at a 60.4 percent clip at the rim this season in half-court settings, per Synergy. That’s a good number for a teenager who is as multi-faceted in how he creates those shots as Boozer is, but not an elite one. But more than the offensive end, where I hear significant concern from NBA personnel is where Boozer fits in on defense. It has become apparent that Boozer is a four-man who needs to play next to a legitimate five because of his lack of vertical athleticism. He struggles to protect the rim, which is why Duke’s defense is drastically better when Patrick Ngongba is out there. Maliq Brown is a great defender, but he’s not a primary interior anchor, which often results in Boozer defending fives when they’re on the court together. In the 544 minutes that Boozer has played with Brown when Ngongba is not on the court, Duke allows 100.4 points per 100 possessions, with the opposition shooting 63.5 percent at the rim. When Ngongba plays with Boozer without Brown, opposing teams shoot just 56.9 percent at the rim, and the Blue Devils only allow 89 points per 100 possessions, per CBB Analytics.
Boozer has also not been particularly good defending away from the rim, either. He’s an excellent communicator and often acts as a back-line captain, but scouts have worries about his lateral footspeed and especially his ability to go north-south and change directions on defense. In an increasingly perimeter-oriented NBA, if he’s at the four, he likely will have to deal with wing-type players who run him through screens off the ball and try to get loose that way. That doesn’t feel likely to be effective for him.
The question for teams revolves around how they will field effective lineups on both ends with Boozer. Defensively, you want a five-man who can protect the rim. But offensively, to maximize Boozer’s strength and power on the interior, you probably want a perimeter-based five who can either shoot or really pass it like Ngongba and Brown do (the passing from Duke’s frontcourt this year, Boozer included, has been a drastically underrated part of their success). It’s a very similar predicament to what teams faced with Kevin Love in the modern era.
The good news is that Boozer is so advanced and versatile offensively that he can counteract what happens on defense by dominating games on offense. He’s more advanced than Love was at the same age in all of the modern ways required to be a star NBA player. The way he took over for Duke to slow down Siena’s run in the first half by playing in ball screens with guard screeners was exceptional. The way he took over the second half against TCU both on and off the ball on offense was wildly impressive. He creates significantly more advantages than he gives away in and will always help you win the possession battle through his elite-level rebounding and hand-eye coordination.
A funny conversation that repeatedly comes up among scouts is that they don’t want Boozer to go to one of the best teams in the league. They would be terrified if he ended up on, say, the Oklahoma City Thunder, Boston Celtics or San Antonio Spurs, because they know those teams would understand how to get the most out of his game. It looks like none of those three organizations will get the chance at him, given the way the LA Clippers (the Thunder own their first-rounder) and Atlanta Hawks (the Spurs own their first) have turned their seasons around. But that conversation says a lot about who Boozer is and how valuable he could be. He’s still in my top three in that same group with Dybantsa and Peterson.
Ten Other Notes From The Weekend
• Before the tournament began, I identified five players outside of Dybantsa, Peterson, Acuff and Boozer who could significantly help themselves: Connecticut’s Braylon Mullins, Tennessee’s Nate Ament, Houston’s Chris Cenac Jr., Alabama’s Amari Allen and Louisville’s Brown. Of the four who played (Brown missed both games with a back injury), there were varying results.
• The biggest winner of the quartet was Cenac. In Houston’s first-round game against Idaho, he dominated the glass with 18 rebounds and controlled the interior possession battle. But then against Texas A&M, we got to see more of his versatility. He dropped 17 points with nine rebounds, hitting a few midrange jumpers, grabbed contested boards and consistently provided a presence with his length. Cenac still has his warts, and they popped up in these two games, too. He’s late rotationally on defense more often than you’d like, and he can get beaten off the bounce. Offensively, he’s not that explosive vertically and can be challenged to finish at the rim. But when he’s playing as he did in these two games, you can see how a long, 6-11 player with perimeter skill would be a worthwhile project for NBA teams to invest in.
• After Cenac, Allen stood out most. The numbers look pedestrian, but scouts took notice of his passing ability as he took over some of the point guard responsibilities from the suspended Aden Holloway. Allen’s playmaking out of ball screens was lethal in the first round against Hofstra, and while he only had four assists, he easily could have had double figures if his teammates had converted some looks. Defensively, he took on the Cruz Davis matchup in the second half and did an outstanding job making him work for buckets. The Texas Tech game was basically over before it started, and Allen didn’t shoot well, but scouts again noted how good he looked on defense. I wouldn’t say it was a massive needle-mover of a weekend for Allen, but he’s starting to make his case as a Josh Hart-style, do-it-all wing who can help someone as long as they aren’t expecting him to score a ton early.
• Mullins had an up-and-down weekend. He struggled a bit in the first round against Furman, taking what I would say was one of the 12 worst shots in basketball history to end the half against the Paladins. He pulled up with 11 seconds left on the game clock with the shot clock off instead of holding onto the ball, leading to a 3 on the other end. He was quite poor in the second half after that moment. Then against UCLA, he struggled in the first half but then drilled two 3s and a midrange jumper at the end of that stanza to get going in the last four minutes. Then around the midway point of the second half, he drilled a midrange jumper, got fouled on a 3 and made a layup.
The problem for Mullins is consistency. His points tend to come in flurries when he looks unstoppable. But in other moments, he becomes invisible. Scouts are starting to wonder if he’s just a good shooter and potentially not an elite one. His stock is polarizing right now; some see him as a potential top-15 pick, while others put him more in the mid-to-late 20s..
• While Tennessee made the Sweet 16, Ament did not help himself this weekend. He went scoreless in 18 minutes during the first-round blowout of Miami (Ohio) while turning the ball over three times. Then against Virginia, he seemed to struggle with the Cavaliers’ physicality; at least he helped out with 16 points, even though he shot 36 percent. He’s clearly dealing with a high ankle sprain that he suffered late in the season and is choosing to play through it, so I don’t believe scouts will be overly harsh on him.
• Arizona’s 6-4 guard Brayden Burries has been as efficient and productive as anyone outside the top-four prospects listed. He dropped 16 points and nine rebounds against Utah State, including a quick five-point flurry to start the second half that extended his team’s lead and then a deep 3-pointer with about two minutes left to essentially bury the game. A few scouts have Burries in the same tier as Houston’s Kingston Flemings, Illinois’ Keaton Wagler and Brown among the guard class thanks to his ability to shoot, defend his position and rebound. He is very much in the lottery conversation.
• Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz engineered the biggest upset of the first weekend with the Hawkeyes’ win over No. 1 seed Florida on Sunday. If you just looked at the box score, you might come away unimpressed with Stirtz’s 5-of-16 mark from the field or his pedestrian 13-point, five-rebound, five-assist game. But I thought he was the best player on the court against the Gators with how he dictated everything for the Hawkeyes’ offense while controlling the tempo of the game.
Ben McCollum and company clearly wanted this game played on their terms, with long possessions eating deep into the shot clock. He also was very specific in the matchups he targeted, often trying to find Xaivian Lee as the guard defender and Alex Condon as the big where he could. That led to Iowa dropping 53 points in the first 27 minutes. Florida started switching all screens after that point, and Stirtz struggled a bit to create in isolation in those matchups, which is why his shooting numbers were as bad as they were. But Stirtz’s game against Florida was a primary example of how you have to watch the games instead of just box-score hunting. The upset was led by Tavion Banks’ and Stirtz’s ability to find those mismatches and relentlessly attack them.
• Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner did everything over the weekend outside of drilling a 50-foot buzzer beater (which just barely rimmed out) against Nebraska. He dropped 26 points, seven rebounds and five assists against McNeese with a bevy of big shots. Against Nebraska, he was the team’s only source of shot creation on his way to 27 points and four assists as Duke Miles struggled to get going. Tanner is a polarizing prospect for NBA front offices, with analytics groups making strong cases for him while more traditional scouts worry about his size (he’s listed at 6 feet, 170 pounds). His size popped up as a real defensive concern in both games this weekend. He feels like the kind of player who should test his stock, see if he can get an NBA team to promise him a spot in the first round and go back to Vanderbilt for what will assuredly be a massive bag of money if he doesn’t get that guarantee.
• On the other side of that Vanderbilt-Nebraska game, Cornhuskers junior wing Pryce Sandfort continued to stand out as an elite-level shooter with more to his game than just that. Yes, he drilled 10 3s in the Huskers’ two wins this weekend on his way to 38 total points, but he also rebounds, passes well and is a better defender than he gets credit for. He feels like another player tailor-made for the draft-testing process to see if he can earn his way into the first round. I tend to hear second-round evaluations for him, but shooting wings are always valuable. I thought he was one of the best players of the weekend.
• I’ll end with a few rapid-fire reactions to impressive performances. Connecticut’s Tarris Reed Jr. dropped an absurd 31-point, 27-rebound game against Furman while dominating the glass against an undersized opponent. But the big winner for Connecticut this weekend was Alex Karaban, who scored 22 points against Furman and then a huge 27 points to carry the Huskies past UCLA. Michigan just keeps rolling with its nation’s-best frontcourt of Aday Mara, Yaxel Lendeborg and Morez Johnson Jr. Mara and Lendeborg were the big standouts this weekend; Mara had 16 points, five rebounds, five assists and four blocks against an undersized Saint Louis team, as Lendeborg went off for 25 points on 13 shots. Illinois forward David Mirkovic laughably dominated No. 14 seed Penn for 29 points and 17 rebounds on Thursday. He should probably head back to Champaign for another year of development on defense, but he has caught scouts’ eyes with his well-rounded modern offensive game. Finally, Henri Veesaar put in a massive effort for North Carolina with 26 points, 10 rebounds and four assists as the wheels came off of the Hubert Davis era in the team’s loss to VCU. Veesaar was instrumental in the Tar Heels building a 19-point lead as he dominated the game in ball screens, hit three 3-pointers from the center position and controlled the interior against an overmatched Rams’ frontcourt. I would expect Veesaar to test his stock in what could be a deep class of centers; he’ll have a chance to be a first-round pick.