Arkansas v Ole Miss
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We're nearly at the midpoint of the college basketball season, and the quality of the freshman class remains one of the most notable themes in the sport. Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson, Mike Brown Jr., Koa Peat are among the top rookies who have been the story of this college basketball season. And then gems like Kayden Mingo, Keaton Wagler, and Ebuka Okorie have been refreshing surprises. The 2025 class has proven to be not only incredibly talented at the top but also deep. It's living up to, if not exceeding, expectations so far this season.

Ironically, this class was almost even better, much better --- Cooper Flagg was once a member of the 2025 high school class before he reclassifed up to the 2024 class, ultimately playing just three years of high school basketball.

Flagg's departure from the class was met by the arrival of another big name as AJ Dybantsa made a similar move up from 2026 to 2025. The only difference was that Dybantsa was old enough that the move placed him in his appropriate class from an age perspective. Dybantsa immediately replaced Flagg as the top-ranked prospect in the country and held that spot until the very final rankings were released, which happened just about eight months ago.

At 247Sports, we eventually made the decision to move Darryn Peterson up to the No. 1 spot in the 2025 class, where he would finish. Peterson had gone head-to-head with Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer, and Nate Ament during the high school season, leading his team to wins in two of those three matchups and outdueling all three of the other top prospects individually. Peterson cemented his spot atop the class by sharing MVP honors at the McDonald's All-American Game with Boozer.

Today, we're going to look back at those final 247Sports rankings for the 2025 class (the now college freshmen) and assess five areas we nailed in the rankings, and five players who have since proven us wrong in our evaluations.

Five scouting hits from the 2025 class

1. The Big 3 - Darryn Peterson (Kansas), AJ Dybantsa (BYU), Cameron Boozer (Duke)

247Sports 2025 Class Ranking: Peterson, No. 1 | Dybantsa, No. 2 | Boozer, No. 3

The battle between Peterson and Dybantsa for No. 1 in the 2025 class was a major storyline in our rankings last season. Dybantsa came into the year perceived as in a class by himself, but then seemed to plateau during his senior season. Peterson, on the other hand, was ascending at a rapid rate. While the debate between Peterson and Dybantsa remains ongoing today, what we were spot-on about in retrospect was that this was not a two-player race; there were three prospects in the conversation. 

While Cameron Boozer finished as the third-ranked player in the 2025 class, we were adamant that he was not only in the same tier as Peterson and Dybantsa but even had the highest long-term floor. The questions we had for Boozer were whether he had the same long-term upside. All of that remains true today. All three members of that trio have been spectacular when they've been on the floor this season and sit atop virtually every credible NBA mock draft.

2. Darius Acuff, Arkansas

247Sports 2025 Class Ranking: No. 5 overall

Acuff finished as the fifth-best prospect in the 2025 class, and in the early portion of the college basketball season, I took a lot of public criticism for this one. In the last month, though, it's been crickets. Why? Because Acuff has been as impactful as any freshman in the country. Coming into this past weekend, he was averaging 27.5 points and 6.5 assists in SEC play. On the season, he is at 19.9 points, 5.9 assists, and 2.8 rebounds while shooting 48.7% from the floor and 42.5% from behind the arc. He might not have the burst of Kingston Flemings or the smooth skill of Mikel Brown Jr., but Acuff can carry a team almost single-handedly at times. He proved that time and time again last year at IMG Academy, and he's doing it again so far in the SEC.

3. The Arizona freshman - Brayden Burries and Koa Peat

247Sports 2025 Class Rankings: Burries, No. 9 overall | Peat, No. 11 overall

Brayden Burries and Koa Peat finished as five-star prospects ranked No. 9 and No. 11, respectively, in a historically good senior class. When Peat opened his college career with a 30-point outburst, there was a chorus of voices saying how he was ranked too low coming out of high school. When Burries had five or fewer points in three of his first five college games, the chorus sang that he was overrated. Turns out we were right on both. 

Peat has been every bit as impactful as we expected, but that season opener was an outlier. He hasn't scored 30 since. In fact, he's only gotten 20 once, and that was this past weekend, three months to the day after his college debut. The questions about Peat's shooting have also proven warranted. He has three made threes on the season and didn't even start taking them until right around the holidays. 

As for Burries, he came into the weekend with 10 straight games in double figures, including five with 20-plus. Together, the freshmen are the top two scorers for an undefeated Arizona program ranked No.1  in the country. In short, Burried and Peat are every bit as good as expected, and yet not in that same long-term tier with the likes of Dybantsa, Peterson, Boozer, Acuff, Caleb Wilson, and Flemings

4. Braylon Mullins, UConn

247Sports 2025 Class Ranking:  No. 12 overall

Final rankings came out in May of 2025, but it was a full year earlier, in May of 2024, when I publicly praised Mullins. He received a subsequent boost in the 247Sports rankings, which sparked a copycat effect across the industry. Mullins jumped from just inside the top 100 to a five-star prospect ranked No. 12 overall. Not surprisingly, he made similar leaps on other national services. He missed the first five games of his freshman season at UConn, and took another couple of weeks to get himself back into a rhythm. Most recently, though, he's averaged 16 points per game in the last four while shooting 44% from behind the three-point line. He's also being mocked as a very possible one-and-done first-round pick.

5. Kayden Mingo

247Sports 2025 Class Ranking: No. 34 overall

How many freshmen in the country are currently averaging 14.9 points, 4.5 assists, 3.9 rebounds, 2.5 steals, and have a 3:1 assist-to-turnover ratio? There's just one, Mingo. In fact, there's only one other player in all of college basketball who can match that versatility of impact - Vanderbilt's Tyler Tanner. Unfortunately, Mingo has missed the last two games with a broken nose. We were the only national media outlet to rank him inside the top-35 a year ago, and he's more than lived up to that prognostication. Sure, Mingo has done it on a Penn State team where he's had an immediate opportunity, but he's handled that opportunity with productivity and versatility.

Five Scouting Misses

1. Kingston Flemings, Houston

247Sports 2025 Class Ranking: No. 20

Flemings was a top-20 prospect in the national class last year, which means he was someone we believed was McDonald's All-American worthy (he didn't make the game) and in the conversation for a potential one-and-done trajectory. But he's way better than we predicted. The biggest variable is the shooting. Candidly, Flemings looked like a total non-shooter in our live evaluations last year. So far, this season, he's at 40% from three on the season, although we're seeing that regress to the mean after going 6-for-25 from beyond the arc in his last seven games. Even if the shooting turns out to be only slightly ahead of what we projected, Flemings' burst and playmaking are exemplary. Beyond that, there is an assertiveness and instinctive alpha-type quality about him that has really resonated. If we were to re-rank the class, he'd be somewhere between 4-8.

2. Amari Allen, Alabama

247Sports 2025 Class Ranking: No. 64 overall

In some ways, this was a win. We were higher on Allen than anyone else in the industry. In fact, we had him inside the top-65, and others didn't even have him ranked at all. Right now, it looks like he should have been inside the top 20. Like Mingo, Allen is stuffing all columns of the stat sheet, averaging 11.6 points, 7.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and over a block and a steal per game. He's also posting 46/38/75 shooting splits while being capable of playing either the four or the three for Alabama.

3. Keaton Wagler, Illinois

247Sports 2025 Class Ranking: No. 150 overall

Again, we were higher than anyone. In fact, we were the only ones to rank Wagler at all. But it turns out it wasn't nearly high enough. Wagler did not play on a major sneaker circuit, nor did his high school team play a national schedule, so only one member of our staff was able to evaluate him live. Thankfully, that allowed us to identify him when others didn't, but he would be about 125 spots higher if we were able to do it again.

4. The Brewster Academy Backcourt - Ebuka Okorie (Stanford) and Killyan Toure (Iowa State)

247Sports 2025 Class Rankings: Okorie, No. 119 overall | Toure, No. 131 overall

Brewster Academy is a boarding school in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, right on the water of Lake Winnipesaukee. It's one of the most picturesque prep schools you'll find. It's also a basketball powerhouse that has produced the likes of Donovan Mitchell, Will Barton, Devin Carter, Thomas Robinson, and TJ Warren over the years. Last year's backcourt of Ebuka Okorie and Killyan Toure have both been ahead of schedule at Stanford and Iowa State, respectively. 

We were the first national outlet to rank Okorie, but again, it hasn't been nearly high enough as he's put up 22.1 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 2.9 assists for the Cardinals. We were just wrong on Toure, after he had an underwhelming EYBL season. He's actually averaging more points per game this year at Iowa State (10.4) then he did last year in conference (9.4), when he was his team's 4th leading scorer. Of course, it's Toure's defense that is really his calling card.

5. Chris Cenac, Houston

247Sports 2025 Class Rankings: No. 7 overall

Cenac finished as the No. 7-ranked prospect in last year's national class. It was an evaluation based on his upside and sheer tools. 6-foot-10 with a 7-foot-3 wingspan, athleticism, and some budding skill. Combine that with the fact that he chose to go play for Kelvin Sampson and we figured his inconsistent motor was about to get forced into overdrive. Eight months later, that's still a fair long-term bet, but the immediate returns haven't been quite as high as hoped and, at minimum, should have been behind the likes of Wilson and Flemings, and maybe behind Burries, Peat, Mullins, and others.