This week’s Ballislife National Player of the Year Ladder is here, and there are a couple of new additions who are likely to be mainstays for the rest of the season. We did the long intro last week, so let’s just dive into what we’re all here for. 

1. Cameron Boozer, Duke

Last week: No. 1

Boozer keeps his top spot on the ladder after leading Duke to two top-15 wins last week, downing No. 15 Florida on Dec. 2 and No. 7 Michigan State on Saturday. Boozer tallied 29 points and six rebounds against the defending national champion Gators before leading Duke in all three major offensive categories against Sparty, tallying 18 points, a season-high 15 rebounds and five assists. 

Boozer has already all but locked up the National Freshman of the Year conversation, despite entering the season as the least talked about in a trio also featuring Darryn Peterson (Kansas) and AJ Dybantsa (BYU) that will likely be selected with the top three picks in the 2026 NBA Draft. 

With an average of 23 points and 9.3 rebounds through 10 games, Boozer is tracking toward a landslide in the National Player of the Year conversation as well. For context, the gap between Boozers’ KenPom POY score (2.535) and the next closest player in the country (Joshua Jefferson, 1.823) is greater than the gap between Jefferson and the player with the 10th-best KPOY score (Koa Peat, 1.206). 

2. Yaxel Lendeborg, Michigan

Last week: No. 2

There was an opening for a few players below Lendeborg on last week’s ladder to overtake him for the current runner-up position, if only because Michigan only played once this past week. That was another dominant 40-point win for the now second-ranked Wolverines, but Lendeborg was held slightly below his usual stat line with 14 points and eight rebounds. 

Lendeborg may not always put up the gaudiest scoring totals because of the balance in Michigan’s scoring, but there’s little doubt about who the engine behind Dusty May’s operation is. If Michigan keeps winning and doing it in the fashion they have been, with style and Lendeborg’s high-flying flash, he remains the most realistic season-long challenger to Boozer’s decisive early lead. 

With games against two power conference opponents that Michigan should easily handle in Villanova and Maryland this week, Lendeborg has an opportunity to put two more big-time performances on his resume.

3. Koa Peat, Arizona

Last week: Not ranked

Arizona’s Koa Peat would have been No. 6 on last week’s inaugural ladder, but the problem is we only went to five. Now that Arizona is officially the No. 1 team in the country after hammering No. 20 Auburn by 29 points on Saturday, it’s inarguable that Peat belongs on the podium right now. The freshman tallied 18 points on an uber-efficient 8-of-11 shooting, in addition to dishing out five assists and grabbing four rebounds. 

Peat has one of the most dominant non-Boozer performances of the season thus far, as he tallied 30 points on 11-of-18 shooting in his collegiate debut against defending national champion Florida in Las Vegas. Peat put together a season’s worth of highlights that night on the Strip, finishing a pair of eye-opping slams while executing a handful of crafty finishes around the rim and mid-range jumpers. 

4. JT Toppin, Texas Tech

Last week: Not ranked

Toppin was another player left off last week’s initial ladder by just a hair, as the Red Raiders’ 30-point loss to then-top-ranked Purdue was still too fresh in my mind to give him the edge over some other stars from Feast Week. Toppin has mostly been his usual self this season, but the fact that some of his contemporaries on this list have come back down to Earth now means they’re playing at a level below Toppin’s baseline.

Aside from the trio of superfreshmen, Toppin was the next most popular choice among preseason NPOY selections and he hasn’t really done anything that should make anyone shy away from that. The degree to which Boozer has dominated the conversation has been surprising, but Toppin is still getting his 20+ points and 11+ rebounds per game and his Red Raiders haven’t slipped since that Purdue debacle.

I doubt he’ll slip off this list again, just based off the consistency we’ve seen him display dating back to his freshman campaign at New Mexico two years ago. 

5. Joshua Jefferson, Iowa State

Last week: No. 3

Jefferson built upon his breakout Feast Week with an impressive 24-point showing in a 132-68 (!) win over Alcorn State last week, making 10-of-13 attempts from the field while also dishing out 10 assists and grabbing three rebounds. Jefferson now has four double-doubles in total this year. In two of them, he recorded 10+ rebounds and in the other two he recorded 10+ assists, proving he’s arguably the most effective Swiss Army knife in all of college hoops to this point. 

Jefferson did have his quietest performance of the season against No. 1 Purdue on Saturday, but that was partially because Iowa State was so dominant as a team that the game was effectively over early in the second half. As noted in the Boozer section, Jefferson’s 1.823 KPOY score still ranks second in the nation.