For the second year in a row, the Kansas men’s basketball team reeled in the top-ranked high school recruit in the nation.
Darryn Peterson, who had vied with AJ Dybantsa for the top spot in the 2025 rankings, ultimately went second behind Dybantsa in the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft, making him the highest-drafted Jayhawk in 12 years.
This coming season, new KU forward Tyran Stokes has a stranglehold on the top spot in the 2026 high school rankings. The earliest 2027 mock drafts, a year in advance, reflect the possibility that he could parlay it into his own chance at the No. 1 overall pick.
Early 2027 rankings from On3’s James Fletcher III and mock drafts from Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Wasserman, CBS Sports’ Adam Finkelstein and ESPN’s Jeremy Woo give the 6-foot-7 forward from Louisville, Kentucky, the No. 1 spot.
Wasserman, while projecting Stokes to go to the Sacramento Kings, wrote that Stokes has “separated himself with a blend of power, athleticism, three-level shotmaking flashes and playmaking versatility.”
“Stokes figures to play different roles at Kansas, either as an initiating point-wing or power forward given his creation and size/physicality,” he added. “He operates with visible confidence and a vocal, assertive leadership style that some coaches love and others may view as abrasive. Stokes will start atop the board, but he’ll still have to earn it by next June by demonstrating enough consistency, shooting dependability and maturity.”
The question is whether any other player on the 2026-27 roster will emerge and play his way into NBA Draft contention. It might be a particularly good bet this year that someone will, given that KU is bringing in the nation’s No. 3 high school recruiting class on 247Sports, its highest mark in 13 years.
Stokes is the headliner, of course, and even the early mock drafts that don’t have him in the top spot place him in the high lottery. NBA Draft Room has him second with the Kings behind Arkansas’ Jordan Smith Jr., a stellar defender and combo guard. NBADraft.net put him down at seventh.
However, KU’s class does include a second five-star addition in Taylen Kinney, a fellow Kentuckian who is expected to lead the Jayhawks’ offense right away as the starting point guard during the 2026-27 campaign. Kinney is a fringe top-20 prospect in his class, a well-rounded lead guard who can both score at the rim and set up his teammates, but the early mock drafts don’t seem to think very highly of him at this point, or at least consider it likely that he becomes a one-and-done. He didn’t make the 30-player rankings of Fletcher or Wasserman or the top 60 on ESPN, NBA Draft Room or NBADraft.net.
NBA Draft Room did place him at No. 80 with the following short assessment: “One of the top point guards in the 2026 class could be a one or two year college player.”
Its ranking does, however, include two additional Jayhawks. One is a somewhat surprising inclusion near the top of the second round at No. 32, also to Sacramento: center Paul Mbiya.
The NBA Draft Room writer is clearly assuming a significant second-year leap from the Congolese 7-footer, who averaged 1.2 points and 1.4 rebounds in 21 sparse appearances as a freshman, but showed significant flashes of potential in the NCAA Tournament, when he had eight points, three rebounds and a block against Cal Baptist and four points, six rebounds and a block against St. John’s. Head coach Bill Self praised Mbiya’s improvement late last season, and has said that the opportunity exists for him to claim a significant role during the 2026-27 season given that Charleston transfer Christian Reeves will miss much of the offseason while recovering from shoulder surgery.
NBA Draft Room describes Mbiya as follows: “An impressive big man with awesome tools and a quickly developing game. Has a ton of power and impressive movement skills for a player his size. One to watch and buy stock now.”
Trent Perry, a developmental four-star wing out of Frisco, Texas, is No. 164 in the same ranking. He, Stokes and Kinney are part of a class that also includes forward Davion Adkins, Luke Barnett and late unranked additions Grant Mordini and Atticus Richmond.
Any other potential prospect will need to take a significant step forward during the 2026-27 season to earn professional consideration.
Self has stated he still believes wing Kohl Rosario can be an NBA player. Rosario, a Miami native who was playing at Overtime Elite and reclassified to join KU last year over the summer, earned an early spot in the starting lineup but battled inconsistency and ended up averaging 3.4 points in 11.4 minutes per game while shooting just 28.6% from beyond the arc. Self said he feels Rosario will need to develop his confidence in order to achieve better results this year.
Much like his future backcourt running mate Kinney, Toledo transfer guard Leroy Blyden Jr. lacks prototypical size in the backcourt, but he does already have a proven track record with 16.4 points per game while shooting more than 40% from 3-point range. Transferring that level of production to the Big 12 could launch him into NBA conversations.
Kansas signee Taylen Kinney smiles from behind the Kansas bench on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug
