NCAA Basketball Recruiting: 5 early teams in the mix for No. 1 class of 2026 G Brandon McCoy

Cal Bears

Cal is an interesting team to try to go after McCoy but since he’s from the state, it makes sense for them to make a run. And Coach Mark Madsen could appeal to the 5-star guard, using his NBA career as a selling point, along with the development of Jaylon Tyson, a former high-ranking recruit out of high school who broke out to average 20 ppg last season for the team.

If McCoy were to pick the Bears, he’d be the team's undisputed star and get to have as much usage as possible in his likely lone season. The team would need a lead guard of his caliber to replace the current mid-major transfers on board in a couple of years in order to be competitive in the ACC and McCoy alone would be able to do that.

Duke Blue Devils

While Cal is a newcomer to the ACC, Duke is the blue blood heavyweight with plenty of national appeal. The number of top prospects who come to Duke and become stars in the NBA is too many to count and McCoy could easily go there and benefit from the national spotlight he’d get.

Of course, there’s no clue as to who McCoy would be playing with on the 2026-27 roster at Duke since all of the players are usually 1-2 year rental players. There will be other 5-star prospects joining McCoy who could possibly be better and take a larger role than expected but the odds that this particular prospect would become a “role player” himself are slim.