Shortly after he took over as Stanford’s new men’s basketball coach in March 2024, Kyle Smith started down the recruiting equivalent of a dead end.

He tried in vain to rekindle the interest of a promising prep school point guard who signed with Stanford under the previous regime but who reopened his recruitment after the coaching change.

When Smith called, Brewster Academy coach Jason Smith informed his longtime friend that Elijah Crawford would not be coming to Stanford because he didn’t feel comfortable playing for a staff with whom he wasn’t familiar. Then, veering off topic unexpectedly, the Brewster coach mentioned to Smith, “But I’ve got another guy who might be of interest to you …”

That was Smith’s introduction to Ebuka Okorie, an absolute blur of a guard who could turn out to be one of the steals of college basketball’s stacked freshman class. A little over a week into the 2025-25 season, Okorie is averaging the third-most points of any Division I player and is starting to draw interest from NBA evaluators.

Okorie offered a glimpse of his quickness off the dribble when he scored 17 points in Stanford’s October 30 exhibition victory over Oregon. The dynamic 6-foot-2 playmaker then unleashed his full arsenal, tallying 26 points in a season-opening rout of Portland State on November 4 and dropping 29 points on Montana four nights later.

The competition will get tougher as ACC play approaches, but Smith suspects that Okorie is up to the challenge. As the Stanford coach told Yahoo Sports this week, “It’s one thing if you’re producing against mid-majors and you’re a mid-major athlete. He’s not. I think he has the speed and length to be able to swim with the sharks.”

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Okorie is far from the only freshman who has outperformed expectations over the opening eight days of the college basketball season. Freshmen from Tucson, to East Lansing, to Chapel Hill have shined, chipping away at the widely held notion across college basketball that high school recruiting is no longer as important as it once was and that proven 22- and 23-year-old transfers are the key to building a title contender.

Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, Duke forward Cameron Boozer and BYU wing AJ Dybantsa so far have lived up to their preseason hype, but two other heralded five-star freshmen are rapidly turning the Big Three into a Big Five.

Arizona’s Koa Peat delivered one of the finest debuts by a freshman in recent memory while spearheading Arizona’s opening-night upset of reigning national champion Florida. The bruising 6-foot-8 forward bullied what was supposed to be college basketball’s deepest frontline this season, scoring 30 points and adding 7 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals.

North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson displayed top-five upside, relentless effort and a winning mentality during a massive win over Kansas last Friday night. What stood out most wasn’t even the 6-foot-10 forward’s 24 points, seven rebounds or four assists. Check out his fiery, fist-pumping reaction to forcing a 10-second violation midway through the first half.

After the game, Wilson hinted to reporters that his desire to take it to Peterson was the impetus behind his locked-in attitude. Wilson said he changes the wallpaper on his phone on game days to make sure he plays “pissed.” When asked what his wallpaper was on Friday, Wilson referenced his quiet 0-for-4 shooting night in the McDonald’s All-American game last April.

“My wallpaper today,” Wilson told reporters, “was my feeling after the McDonald’s All-American game when I didn’t touch the ball and Darryn Peterson was on my team,”

The headliners aren’t the only reason this freshman class appears to be among the best in recent memory. There’s an array of other freshmen who are already putting their teams on their backs and impacting winning in a major way.

• Long, athletic Cam Ward came off the bench to spearhead Michigan State’s upset victory over Arkansas last Saturday, scoring 18 points, grabbing 10 rebounds and changing the game with his defensive intensity.

• Sweet-shooting Trey McKenney put up an efficient 21 points and knocked down six 3-pointers in Michigan’s season-opening annihilation of Oakland.

• Mobile big man Mouhamed Sylla has played three games so far for Georgia Tech and has posted a double-double in each of them.

• Baylor guard Tounde Yessoufou had 24 in his college debut. 

• Tennessee’s Nate Ament is averaging 20.5 points and 8.5 rebounds. 

• Arkansas has a pair of freshman guards (Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas) who have combined for 75 points in two games. 

The list also includes Carmelo Anthony’s son, who is off to an encouraging start for Syracuse. So is skilled, floor-spacing Illinois guard Keaton Wagler and Houston’s trio of highly touted freshmen.

Then there are the international newcomers who came straight to college basketball from overseas leagues.

Washington forward Hannes Steinbach has been as dominant for the Huskies as he was for Germany’s U-19 World Cup team this past summer. Virginia forward Thijs De Ridder has racked up 41 points and 15 rebounds in a pair of one-sided victories. Virginia Tech’s Neoklis Avdalas, a 6-foot-9 point guard from Greece, drew comparisons to Egor Demin this past weekend after he went for 33, 6 and 5 in an overtime win over Providence.

“We knew how good he was,” Providence coach Kim English told reporters. “That size, that good of a passer, he’s an NBA top-20 draft pick. He had a really, really good day.”

The torrid start from this year’s freshman class comes at a time when the get-old, stay-old ethos has become popular across college basketball.

Georgetown has no freshmen on this year’s roster and UCLA added a single late signee in June, the thinking being that transfers might not have the same long-term NBA potential as elite freshmen but they possess the physical maturity and guile to win right away. Schools routinely offer seven-figure NIL deals to established veterans who have proven themselves at the high-major level. Only the very top tier of freshmen make that kind of money.

Will the success of this year’s freshmen alter that thought process? Perhaps, but it’s important to remember this is an exceptional class. Coaches are always going to try to figure out where they can get the most value for their NIL money. This year, it might be the freshman class. Next year, it might not be.

Right now, there’s no freshman who’s exceeding expectations more than Okorie, a onetime Harvard commit who did not hold any high-major offers until Jason Smith urged Stanford to give him a look.

When Kyle Smith evaluated Okorie, he viewed the focused, driven 4.0 student as a perfect fit for the Cardinal academically. On the basketball court, Smith likened Okorie to Jamaree Bouyea, a speedy playmaking guard who Smith coached at San Francisco and who has gone on to bounce back and forth between the G League and the NBA the past few years.

‘I thought that was high praise,” Smith said. “Jamaree struggled to play a lot as a freshman at San Francisco, but he eventually turned into a really good player. We’d love to have a player like Jamaree at Stanford, so we were happy to have him.”

To Smith, the first clear sign that Okorie might develop faster than expected came at Chipotle Nationals last year. After deferring to his talented Brewster Academy teammates for much of the season, Okorie asserted himself, attempting 12 shots in a narrow semifinal loss to a Columbus High School team led by the Boozer twins.

Okorie’s rare combination of quickness, intelligence and scoring prowess became more obvious when the Nashua, New Hampshire, native got to campus this summer. Smith made a point of mixing up the teams anytime Stanford scrimmaged during practices and workouts.

Said Smith with a chuckle, “Whatever team I put him on, they kind of found a way to win.”

In Smith’s debut season at Stanford, the Cardinal rode standout senior Maxime Raynaud to a surprising 21 wins. With Raynaud and Stanford’s other leading scorers from last season gone, Smith was eager for someone to step up into a starring role.

Enter Okorie, who in Smith’s words is “growing by leaps and bounds.” He excels attacking the rim off the dribble. He consistently draws fouls. He’s an active defender. And he’s putting the work in the gym every morning to become a more consistent perimeter shooter.

“The speed he has is very, very helpful in this sport,” Smith said. “He makes me look like a good coach.”