Ranking the best players in the D-I Men's division in 2026.

May 5, 2026 by Ultiworld in Opinion

There’s no shortage of talent in the D-I college men’s division. We look a lot at team success, and often see familiar names and faces in those discussions. But who are the best individual players? Who brings the most value to winning a championship? Figuring out which stars shine the brightest is more art than science, but perhaps there’s democratic power in numbers.

So who are the best players in the division right now? To try to clear away as much of the white noise created by circumstance as possible and get to the heart of each individual’s value and contribution, we asked a diverse group of seven members of our coverage team, as well as an anonymous group of elite players and coaches, and our subscribers, to weigh in on the following prompt:

If you were starting a college team today with the singular goal of winning a theoretical D-I Championship this May, how would you rank the players within the division? You aren’t building a team of all of your selections, so don’t worry about how the players complement each other. Consider each pick the first pick of a team, drafting in order, only you can’t pick the players you’ve already ranked above. With regards to injuries and absences, we will include all rostered players unless there is confirmation a player will not be competing, or would not be able to compete, at Regionals and/or Nationals.

This year’s balloting process began prior to D-I Regionals beginning and finalized before the final regionals weekend. Rankings reflect information available up to that point.

The Scoring System (Methodology)

There are three voting groups whose ballots are incorporated: Ultiworld Staff, Participants (Players and coaches from nationally competitive teams), and Ultiworld Subscribers. Staff ballots account for 60% of the final composite score, while Participant ballots take up 30%, and Subscribers make up 10%.¹

All staff ranked between 25 and 35 eligible players, and went through multiple rounds of revisions, and make their ballots visible to the public. Subscribers and Participants were asked to rank a minimum of 15 and maximum of 35. These ballots are anonymous to readers.

This year, we changed to a normalized scoring system to account for the variance in ballot volume by group. We converted raw point totals into a Grade (0-100). This represents the percentage of total possible points a player could have received from that specific voting group. A player who was the unanimous #1 choice of every Subscriber, for example, would receive a Subscriber Grade of 100. This keeps us from getting 500 subscriber ballots that overwhelm the other opinions in the mix.

We’ll start with our top 10, and discussion about that group. Then we’ll reveal the entire top 25, followed by the complete ballots, and additional conversations about the rankings.

The Top 10

Player	Composite Pts.	Aidan Thomas	Alex Rubin	Calvin Ciorba	Edward Stephens	Graham Gordon	Josh Katz	Keith Raynor	Part. Composite (36)	Sub. Composite (71)
Declan Miller (Carleton)	88.41	1	1	1	2	1	2	1	4	1
Tobias Brooks (Colorado)	86.12	2	2	2	6	2	8	4	1	4
Raekwon Adkins (Oregon)	80.30	3	9	3	12	5	1	5	5	2
Anton Orme (Cal Poly)	79.95	6	5	8	4	4	9	3	3	5
Zeke Thoreson (Colorado)	77.31	4	3	7	3	6	3	7	6	6
Nate De Morgan (Carleton)	72.70	5	15	6	1	8	4	6	10	7
Mica Glass (Oregon)	71.24	11	6	10		3	5	2	2	3
Aaron Bartlett (Michigan)	66.55	8	12	4	15	10	10	8	7	9
Toby Warren (UC Santa Cruz)	63.68	7	8	5	14	11	7	14	11	12
Elijah Diamond (Western Washington)	61.55	9	4	16	20	9	13	9	9	10

Four players received votes for the top spot: Declan Miller (Carleton), Tobias Brooks (Colorado), Raekwon Adkins (Oregon), and Nate De Morgan (Carleton). What was the deciding factor for your #1 vote?

Edward Stephens (Senior Staff Writer): Nobody in the division is playing as well, right now, as Nate De Morgan. He has been a Top-10 defender in the country thanks to his uncanny sense of where the offense wants to go, and his own offensive game is the most consistently overpowering we have seen. I’m a big believer in the “now-ness” of these rankings—De Morgan’s form is currently the sharpest in the group.

Josh Katz (Staff Writer): I went with Raekwon Adkins. He’s always been impossible to cover, but starting at last Club Nationals, he’s begun playing like he knows that fact. That “I want the ball and I’m getting the ball” quality has replaced any tentativeness we saw in years past.

Keith Raynor (Senior Editor): I might put Adkins or De Morgan at #1 just because I’m bored of talking about Declan Miller and Tobias Brooks — but what can I say about Miller that hasn’t been said? He is elite in all phases. I still find it completely charming that, despite being the central offensive fulcrum for CUT, he might actually be a better defender than offensive player.

Alex Rubin (Senior Staff Writer): Declan is such an obvious top choice that it’s silly to even talk about it. Nobody matches his combination of athleticism, throwing talent, poise, and leadership. He’s the classic #1 draft pick in this exercise and to pretend otherwise is ludicrous.

I see the arguments other people can make for Brooks (most athletic player, lynchpin of the best team) or Adkins (changes the shape of the field when he turns on his give-and-go game and really stepped up this year with Glass injured so much), but Miller has both beat. And Edward, to have Miller’s teammate ahead of him is laughable in my opinion. We’ve joked about revoking your credentials, but this is really pushing it. De Morgan has been fantastic this season but we haven’t seen him reach the heights under the same kind of pressure that Miller has.

Edward: Since you want to be ugly about it, Alex, let’s get granular. Miller and De Morgan have made the bracket at Nationals exactly the same number of times: 1. In those elimination games, Miller put up 6G/10A/0B/3T; De Morgan put up 7G/11A/1B/4T. They had similar output in the exact same pressure conditions a year ago.

And it definitely means that you need to think a little more before you start throwing around the word “laughable.” What’d you rank De Morgan again? 14?

Aidan Thomas (Staff Writer): I actually flipped my pick from Brooks to Miller. I voted Brooks initially because he has elevated the team around him and carries the pressure of being the #1 on the top team in the country. But rewatching him and Miller match up, Brooks has a bit of “chaos” to his game, while Miller’s consistency and superior defensive play win out in a head-to-head.

How deep does your Tier 1 go? How about Tier 2?

Edward: Tier 1 for me is a grand total of four players who could comfortably lead any team to a deep Nationals run. They’re inspiring, multi-faceted, and capable of bearing enormous loads. Mica Glass would fit here if I had ranked him at all, but I chose to be cautious about his health. For now, Christian Belus (UNC Wilmington) sits at the top of Tier 2, which is a much larger contingent. It goes all the way down to #20—a group of definite inclusions who have the potential to play their way into First Team All-American status but aren’t quite there yet.

Keith: I have an expansive Tier 1 that includes all of my top seven: Miller, Orme, Brooks, Adkins, De Morgan, Thoreson, and Barlett. There are very few orders of that group I’d scoff at. A healthy Eli Diamond and Mica Glass only makes that group bigger. I think this is a uniquely talented time; we still have All-Americans coming back and classes of really exciting young players pushing them. Will look back at this like, “Wow, the division was in an incredible spot back in 2026.”

Josh: My top tier goes six deep, with the caveat that Mica Glass (Oregon) would slot in at number five if I knew he was fully healthy. My stance is similar to Edward’s: you could drop any of those top six onto a Nationals consolation team or a squad losing a game-to-go at Regionals, and that team would suddenly be equipped to make a real run to a semis spot. Tier 2 for me goes down to about #19, with Sam Grossberg (Georgia Tech). Those guys could also be the best player on a semis team, but they’d need a bit more help around them.

Alex: I’ll zag a bit. my top 14 could all be considered one tier (Miller, Brooks, Glass, Hawkins, Thoreson, Diamond, Orme, Kellman, Adkins, S. Grossberg, Warren, Pettenuzzo, Bartlett, and Moren). In my mind, all of those players have a certain “takeover-ability” to single-handedly drag their teams to wins. It’s hard to compare because some—like Miller, Brooks, or Hawkins—play on teams with massive talent around them, while others—like Pettenuzzo or Bartlett—are closer to one-person shows. But in a vacuum, this entire tier of players would produce relatively similar outcomes if put in similar situations.

These players received only one or two Top 10 votes each. What is the case for why your chosen candidate belongs in the elite?

Keith: What have I become? How did I become the Sam Grossberg guy of the group?

Edward: In all honesty, I didn’t rank Grossberg all that highly because I’ve seen him struggle against other good teams. Every hotshot rookie goes through a process where they lose the element of surprise and have to contend with a defense focused squarely on them. There’s an adjustment period, and Grossberg is right in the middle of it.

Keith: Watching Grossberg be so effective at both Club Nationals and U24s was eye-opening. The changes at Georgia Tech have taken a bit of adjustment, and yeah, he’s a high-risk player. But that kind of takeover ability, registered so consistently, is too tantalizing to resist.

Edward: But I do want to put in a word for Christian Belus and Carter Lankford (Cal), who have truly ascended as “First Option-Last Option” players this year. It’s like they’ve been charged with a mission by some divine force. Watching them operate and pushing their whole rosters to their best possible results is the most interesting show in D-I Men’s this spring outside of the Big Three rivalry. You could see hints of it last year in club; Lankford stepped up for Revolver in their championship run, and you could make an argument that Belus was one of Ring of Fire’s four best players at Pro Champs.

Edward: I’d also like to highlight Josh Singleton (UNC). He’s been a very good player ever since his rookie season with Darkside, but this year the “It’s my world” flashes on offense are back on display, and he’s added heroic block-getting ability to the mix. I considered him as high as #5 on my list.

Graham: Yeah, I was high with Edward on Singleton. Josh Singleton has really stepped into the fulcrum role on UNC’s offense and has become one of the best huck throwers in the division—many of his away shots are absolutely marvelous. Even as a bona fide UNC hater, I can’t dim his star this year.

Alex: I’m maybe a bit ahead of the game on Wyatt Kellman (UMass), but he’ll have another great Nationals. At his best, he is the best player on a finals team. Injuries have kept him out of the spotlight, but he is a top-five most talented player in the division when healthy, for sure.

The Top 25 and Beyond

---

1. Our experience has shown that participant ballots often trend toward regional concentrations and emphasize the strength of teammates, while subscriber ballots provide a broad “wisdom of the crowd” but can be influenced by name recognition. ↩