This awards column came together last off-season as an opportunity wrap up roster construction season, while simultaneously honoring the natural transition from college basketball into baseball season (the calendars fit together so nicely). It turned out to be quite telling in terms of where I was right, and where I was wrong.
I went out on a limb to give Iowa the Brady Anderson Award for the program that made a sudden leap thanks to remaking their entire program with one transfer class. It took the Hawkeyes all the way until March to overtake Miami at the top of the leaderboard, but an upset win over Florida and subsequent Elite Eight appearance sealed it.
On the flip side, the 2025 season winner for the same award, Louisville, went big last offseason, earning themselves the Mookie Betts Award for a star studded and overall excellent portal class. The star at the top (Ryan Conwell) wound up an as All-ACC player, but the other pieces never fit together properly, as the Cardinals jumped up from an 8 seed in 2025 to just a 6 seed in 2026, despite a significantly more expensive roster. A reminder that fit and quality scouting are still most important, even with a big budget.
With Iowa State star Milan Momcliovic's late commitment to Kentucky serving as the unofficial end to the major transactions of this roster construction season (although at least nine power conference caliber transfers remain available, #3-4, #6, #9-14), now seems like as good a time as ever to bring it all together. I'll run through the seven awards I handed out last off-season (plus one new award), with the end of season winners as well, while also crowning the winner of this fresh off-season for each category.
Chris Davis Award - Given to the program that is consistently taking wild swings in the hope of hitting massive home runs, and will surely end up with a few strikeouts as well.
Winner: St John's
'25 Off-Season Winner: USC
'26 Season Winner: North Carolina
Last year, North Carolina had one of the best pickups in the nation in Henri Veesaar, but absolutely whiffed on Kyan Evans at point guard, plus Jonathan Powell, although Jarin Stevenson was fine. Now, St. John's has invested heavily in a pair of big time frontcourt transfers, without making a major add to the guard group. While Tounde Yessoufou (Baylor) is one of the most well regarded young forwards in the nation, he is still a risk as a high usage, inefficient player from a disappointing team.
That sums up the Red Storm's other major addition, Donnie Freeman, who can also add in injury prone from his time at Syracuse. The reason that St. John's ends up here, and not in a worse category, is because Rick Pitino will certainly will do a great job in developing at least one of the two major talents, but unless both thrive in starring roles, they will seriously regret leaving the backcourt to Ian Jackson and European veteran Quinn Ellis, instead of bringing in a better transfer guard than Columbia's Avery Brown.
Shohei Ohtani Award - Given to the team that did everything that was needed, finding top of the line stars and perfect fitting role players. Just all-around excellence.
Winner: Miami
'25 Off-Season Winner: St. John's
'26 Season Winner: Michigan
Michigan won the National Championship on the backs of their star frontcourt of transfer Yaxel Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr and Aday Mara, and then Eliott Cadeau took home Final Four MOP. This spring it is extremely unlikely that any coaching staff has just repeated the best transfer class in history so far, leaving the early list of national title contenders mostly occupied by those with high retention. But Miami is a serious sleeper after finding the perfect complements to rising sophomore wings Shelton Henderson and Dante Allen.
Jai Lucas and staff utilized a very similar strategy as last year to great success, with a versatile scoring point guard (Acaden Lewis - Villanova), a freak athlete, rim running center (Somto Cyril - Georgia) and an inside-outside scoring power forward (DeSean Goode - Robert Morris). This time around though, they found solid depth, especially in the backcourt, where Nick Dorn (Indiana) and Brent Bland (St. Peter's) are poised for big roles.
Mookie Betts Award - A secondary to the Ohtani Award, this is given to the team that lands one big home run, with smaller, albeit still excellent moves elsewhere.
Winner: Texas
'25 Off-Season Winner: Louisville
'26 Season Winner: Nebraska
This was a tough one to figure out from last season, since a lot of seemingly good candidates (UConn, Purdue, Illinois, Iowa State) are all much closer fits for the next award. Nebraska won for the addition of star forward Pryce Sanfort, and glue guy Jamarques Lawrence, although there wasn't much more. A year later, Texas also returns a major star in Matas Vokietatis and now pairs him with David Punch, who the Longhorns poached from their fromer Big 12 (and Southwest Conference) rival in TCU.
But whether or not Sean Miller gets back on track this season will be determined by the highly touted perimeter group that he brought in. Isaiah Johnson did absolutely everything for a bottom feeding Colorado team, while Elyjah Freeman was a strong role player at Auburn after jumping up from Division II and Mikey Lewis became the leader of the guard group at St. Mary's. But the potential gem of the class may be Amari Evans, who showed flashes of potential stardom in limited minutes at Tennessee.
Kirk Gibson Award - In honor of the former MVPs legendary pinch hit home run to win game 1 of the 1988 World Series, this is given to the team with a fantastic returning core, who needed just one more missing piece.
Winner: Illinois
'25 Off-Season Winner: Purdue
'26 Season Winner: UConn
Purdue's addition of Oscar Cluff earned them them the off-season award, and eventually, runner up status to UConn, who made the National Championship game, thanks in part to Silas Demery Jr, slotting in as their best guard. This time around, Illinois is the Big Ten powerhouse who bring back most of their elite roster, albeit with huge holes at the guard positions with the Keaton Wagler heading to the NBA and Kylan Boswell's graduation.
Enter Stefan Vaaks, the breakout star as a freshman at Providence, and yet another elite Eastern European (Estonia) talent for Brad Underwood to work with. The lone incoming transfer for the Illini this year, he'll slot in as Wagler's replacement, while returner Jake Davis and a group of freshmen will battle for Boswell's vacated minutes.
Ichiro Suzuki Award - Given to the team that returns a quality core, and brings in low risk role players to fill in the gaps.
Winner: UConn
'25 Off-Season Winner: Florida
'26 Season Winner: Vanderbilt
Florida's strength remained their returning core of big men, but the incoming transfer guards (Xaivian Lee and Boogie Fland) failed to meet expectations. Instead, it was SEC rival Vanderbilt, who supplemented a starring backcourt with Duke Miles, Jalen Washington, AK Okereke and Frankie Collins. This was a very challenging one to figure out for the upcoming season, as many of the best rosters are either full of newcomers or brought in a lone piece to complement a returning core (see above, plus Duke, Gonzaga, Michigan State, Florida again and Purdue).
The Huskies get the nod over Virginia, as they go young in trying to fill the all-important center position with conference rival Najai Hines (Seton Hall) and a promising prospect who never seemed to get rolling in Oskar Giltay (Stanford). If one of those players break out next to Demary, Braylon Mullins and Jaydon Ross, then Duke transfer Nik Khamenia should slot in perfectly as a ball mover and floor spacer poised for massive growth in Storrs. Oh and don't forget high volume shooter Nils Machowski (Wofford) and point guard Jaye Nash (Jacksonville State), who should comprise a strong backup guard group.
Brady Anderson Award - Given to the program that makes a sudden (and shocking) rise year over year, thanks largely to a portal-driven overhaul.
Winner: Providence
'25 Off-Season Winner: Iowa
'26 Season Winner:Â Iowa
New Iowa coach Ben McCollum brought Bennett Stirtz, Tavion Banks, Cam Manyawu and Kael Combs from Drake, while also making a nice addition in Alvaro Folgueiras, on the way to the school's first Elite Eight since 1987. This year's down on its luck program with a chance to take a big leap in year one under a new coach is Providence after hiring Bryan Hodgson from South Florida. He'll build around a pair of conference rivals, with Malik Mack from Georgetown, and Devin Vanterpool, who battled Hodgson at Florida Atlantic.
While Mack will man the point guard role and Vanterpool the chief scorer, perhaps the most impressive pickup was Miles Byrd, one of the finest wing defenders in the nation in his time at San Diego State. With Buffalo's leading scorer Ryan Sabol joining, the backcourt is fully set to be among the best the Big East. The interior however, is much more of a question mark beyond a solid starting center Arrinten Page (Northwestern), although Samson Aletan was impactful at Yale.
Mike Hessman Award - Given to the mid-major team that overwhelms their conference with a massively talented incoming group of transfers. In honor of the all-time minor league home run leader.
Winner: High Point
'25 Off-Season Winner: McNeese State
'26 Season Winner:Â High Point
Honestly, the Cowboys or Panthers will probably win this award every year until there is further realignment, as both continue to significantly out-invest their conference rivals in a way that UNC Wilmington, College of Charleston, Murray State etc, can't in their better leagues. High Point's transfer class led them to a 17-1 Big South record and an NCAA Tournament win, while McNeese failed to beat out Stephen F Austin in the Southland regular season, thanks to a mere 19-3 showing.
It is conceivable that High Point's newest transfer class may end up composing their entire starting five (although Conrad Martinez will have something to say about that). The major prize is point guard CJ Brown, who ran the show for a top fifty South Florida squad, while Jason Rivera-Torres drops down from Monmouth, leaving a better conference after receiving Second Team All-CAA honors. Isaac Garrett (Oakland) and Frankquon Garrett (Kennesaw State) were double digit scorers who led their teams in rebounding. Add in St. Mary's rotation wing Liam Campbell, and the Panthers will enter the season again expecting to dominate the Big South.
Juan Soto Award - Given to the team who spends an ungodly amount of money on their roster, just to drastically underperform and spend the entire season being ridiculed. Shout out to the last place 2026 Mets!
Winner: Indiana
'26 Season Winner:Â Kentucky
At least the Kentucky won an NCAA Tournament game, but their massive twenty plus million dollar roster was a complete flop, with every incoming transfer underperforming returners Otega Oweh and Collin Chandler. Time doesn't always heal all wounds though, and the Wildcats would have won again had they not added Momcliovic (and almost did regardless). Instead Indiana will try to repeat their epic failure of roster building from 2025 season.
Local point guard Markus Burton looked like he may have finally been starting to translate terrific stats into winning for Notre Dame last season, but an ankle injury ended his season before we could find out. The Hoosiers added plenty of less exciting ACC transfers as well, with the unproven Darren Harris (Duke) likely battling the underwhelming Jaeden Mustaf (Georgia Tech) for minutes. Meanwhile, Samet Ygitoglu (SMU) is a quality player, but someone who needs to dominate the ball, while not being good enough to have earned that right. Aiden Sherrell (Alabama) is a high quality, role playing big, but not much more. And Bryce Lindsay (Villanova) is the guy who might make this pick look stupid.
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