Mr. Basketball USA: Jordan Smith Leads Wide-Open Race!

Undecided guard Jordan Smith Jr. of FAB 50 No. 9 Paul VI (Chantilly, Va.) leads wide-open race in the 2025-26 Mr. Basketball USA Tracker powered by Ballislife.com. The 6-foot-2 do-it-all performer edges last year’s National Junior of the Year, Tyran Stokes of Rainier Beach (Seattle) by three points. This year’s race seems to yield as many question marks as answers about the top players and makes for many interesting scenarios as the season plays out. The Mr. Basketball USA Tracker is now in its nineteenth season and picked in real time since 1996.  RELATED: All-Time Mr. Basketball USA Winners | Final 2024-25 Mr. Basketball USA Tracker Plenty has happened since the release of the preseason FAB 50 National Team Rankings on November 5. Within hours of release, last season’s National Junior Player of the Year, Tyran Stokes, left Notre Dame (Sherman Oaks, Calif.) and eventually enrolled at Rainier Beach (Seattle). Notre Dame still has a fine team, but that obviously can shake up the first regular season rankings scheduled to be published on December 1.

Stokes’ plight also had a ripple-affect in the preseason voting results for the 2025-26 Mr. Basketball USA Tracker. It was already expected to be a fairly wide-open race, but the uncertainty surrounding Stokes’ eligibility has opened up the floodgates. The 2026 national class also is not as top-heavy as the star-studded 2025 class was. It wasn’t a secret last year’s race would likely come down to one of three excellent players: current standout NCAA freshman A.J. Dybansta (BYU), Darryn Peterson (Kansas) or Cameron Boozer (Duke), with the latter and former Columbus (Miami, Fla.) standout wrapping up his legendary high school career by leading the Explorers to the FAB 50 national title and earning Mr. Basketball USA honors for the second time in three seasons. This year’s race for the nation’s most prestigious individual honor was expected to be less cut and dry and if the preseason voting results by the 10-man Mr. Basketball USA Tracker panel are any indication, anyone of perhaps eight or even 10 candidates could be the eventual honoree next spring. When the dust settled, Stokes was edged out as the leading front-runner based on the 100-point system (10 points for each first place votes, nine for each second place votes, etc.) by three points by the same player he edged out for top honors among juniors in 2024-25. That player is power guard Jordan Smith Jr. from FAB 50 No. 9 Paul VI (Chantilly, Va.), who topped all 25 vote-getters with 71 overall points. Stokes was second with 69 overall points. Three first-time occurrences should be pointed out with the voting results that have never happened in the prior 18 years of voting for the nation’s top individual player. Smith is a terrific player who impact winning basketball as much as any player in the 2026 national class with his unique combination of skill, competitiveness and physical nature. In fact, he just might be the nation’s best perimeter defender, but his 71 points represent the lowest total of overall points for any leading vote-getter ever. That means the panel has mixed opinions on the top candidates. Smith and Stokes also appeared on eight ballots (meaning two panelists completely left them off their ballot) and for the first time ever, no candidate received at least nine votes. Over the years, it’s not uncommon for the top two or three candidates to appear on all 10 ballots. Those three scenarios created a windfall where many players have a shot in this individual race. The six candidates who received at least one first-place vote is also an all-time high. When you throw in the players who received at least one second-place vote, that number jumps up to eight players, while Missouri-bound point guard Jason Crowe Jr. of Inglewood (Calif.), who is on track to become California’s all-time leading scorer in December, received four third-place votes and finished third overall with 49 point on seven ballots. The players who received at least one first-place vote include Smith with two, Stokes with four and Christian Collins of St. John Bosco (Bellflower, Calif.), Duke-bound Cameron Williams of St. Mary’s (Phoenix, Ariz.), guard Caleb Holt of Prolific Prep (Southwest Ranches, Fla.), and point guard Deron Rippey Jr. of Blair Academy (Blairstown, N.J.) each receiving one first-place vote. Rippey, who had an excellent summer and fall on the circuit, also received two second-place votes to come in fourth overall with 45 points on six ballots. Holt also received a third-place vote and two fourth-place votes to finish with 42 points on six ballots. “It’s a wide open race because no one has popped out and with the eligibility questions surrounding Tyran Stokes, that alone makes this race even more open than initially expected,” said Mr. Basketball USA panelist and Ballislife writer Ani Umana of Athlete.AI. “There are guys out there primed for breakout seasons, and how Stokes’ season plays out will have a lot of bearing on how the voting goes. It also points to the fact this 2026 class is not as top heavy as previous classes, which led to more guys getting No. 1 votes.” This could be the most interesting national player of the year race in recent memory or perhaps in all the previous seasons the Mr. Baketball USA Tracker has been in place. The interesting part is which elite player is going to emerge and which one will remain in the race by leading his team to a successful season. The exciting part will be tracking the progress of the eight or so candidates who truly have a legit shot to follow in the footsteps of players such as Boozer, Cade Cunningham and LeBron James to earn the title of nation’s best high school basketball player. The voting results and the race not being a forgone conclusion make following the high school season as exciting as it ever has been. Make sure to stay logged in to Ballislife.com to track the progress of the nation’s top individual players and the nation’s top teams. Editor’s Note: Click on the “+” sign next to each player’s number to view how many first, second, third or fourth place votes he got and his overall point total.

Rank	Prev.	Name	High School	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
1	22T	Jordan Smith Jr. (8)	Paul VI (VA)	2	1	1	1	71
2	15T	Tyran Stokes (8)	Rainier Beach (WA)	4	2	0	0	68
3	NR	Jason Crowe (7)	Inglewood (CA)	0	0	2	2	49
4	NR	Deron Rippey Jr. (6)	Blair Academy (NJ)	1	2	0	1	45
5	NR	Caleb Holt (6)	Prolific Prep (FL)	1	0	1	2	42
6	22T	Christian Collins (4)	St. John Bosco (CA)	1	0	0	1	27
7	NR	Bruce Branch (3)	Prolific Prep (FL)	0	1	1	0	24
8	NR	Dylan Mingo (3)	Long Island Lutheran (NY)	0	0	2	0	22
9	NR	Marcus Spears Jr. (4)	Dynamic Prep (TX)	0	0	0	0	20
10	13T	Brandon McCoy Jr. (3)	Sierra Canyon (CA)	0	0	0	1	18
11	NR	Cameron Williams (2)	St. Mary’s (AZ)	1	0	0	1	17
12	NR	Adonis Ratliff (2)	Archbishop Stepinac (NY)	0	1	0	0	14
13	NR	Bryson Howard (2)	Frisco Heritage (TX)	0	0	0	0	12
14	17T	C.J. Rosser (1)	Southeastern Prep (FL)	0	0	1	0	8
15	NR	Anthony Thompson (1)	Western Reserve Academy (OH)	0	0	0	1	7
16	NR	Beckham Black (1)	Southeastern Prep (FL)	0	0	0	0	6
17T	NR	Arafan Diane (1)	Iowa United Prep (IA)	0	0	0	0	5
17T	NR	Adan Diggs (1)	Millennium (AZ)	0	0	0	0	5
17T	NR	Bo Ogden (1)	Austin Westlake (TX)	0	0	0	0	5
17T	NR	A.J. Williams (1)	Eagle’s Landing (GA)	0	0	0	0	5
21T	NR	Maximo Adams (1)	Sierra Canyon (CA)	0	0	0	0	4
21T	NR	Tajh Ariza (1)	Link Academy (MO)	0	0	0	0	4
21T	NR	Obinna Elezie Jr. (1)	Southeastern Prep (FL)	0	0	0	0	4
21T	NR	King Gibson (1)	Spire Academy (OH)	0	0	0	0	4
21T	NR	Jordan Page (1)	Broughton (NC)	0	0	0	0	4

About Mr. Basketball USA Tracker Panel Ballislife.com’s panel of 10 experts, which includes five McDonald’s All-American selection committee members, casts its vote for the top national player of the year candidates. Each panelist lists his top seven candidates regardless of class. The votes are then tabulated on a 10-point scoring system with a first-place vote equaling 10 points, a second-place vote earning nine points and down to four points for a seventh-place vote. The number in parenthesis refers to the numbers of ballots on which a player appeared and previous rankings refers to position in last season’s final tracker.