For this week’s Note Hub, I did set out a goal to put aside the top prospects of the 2025 NBA Draft – your Cooper Flaggs, Dylan Harpers, etc.—to focus on less heralded guys, some of whom will most likely return to college for the 2025-26 season.
And then, Jeremiah Fears happened, delivering one of the most impressive (maybe THE most impressive) games among all of the 2025 prospects.
I mean, the dude hit a three and a foul to keep his team undefeated; what could be more impressive?
But Fears wasn’t the only player to hit game-winners last week. In this article, I do feature two of them. So let’s get into it.
Striking Fear(s)
The Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte was a really, really good two days of basketball (we’ll get to the second game later), and the biggest star of the event was Oklahoma’s guard Jeremiah Fears, a player quickly rising up the draft boards.
He made the headlines this week for all the right reasons, including hitting an insane three-pointer with a foul to give the Sooners their 11th straight win to start the season.
Fears was great not just because he won his team the game with an incredible shot; his impact was felt throughout the game, especially in the second half. He was a bit quieter to start the game, but I was still impressed at how he got to the basket—he drew 4 fouls in the first 20 minutes, all of them in the act of shooting, and he did it in a variety of ways, via P&R and in transition.
Speed, shiftiness, and unpredictability are Fears’ greatest assets, and he uses them to draw fouls at an impressive 57% rate this year. As many of us have noted before, there’s a pretty strong correlation between FTr and guard success in the NBA.
I think Fears really chose his college team well, as I wanted to give Oklahoma’s coach, Porter Moser, a lot of credit for how he created an environment for Fears to thrive. He sets up a lot of cool off-ball stuff to open up driving lanes and spaces into which his star freshman can completely explode.
He gets to play a lot in P&R, where Fears’ (positive) unpredictability really shines through. I think being able to drive to your weak hand is very important for a lead guard. Per Synergy, Fears goes to his left on a whopping 70% of his drives. He loves to create angles for his drives by rejecting screens and using off-ball action as misdirection. He has the ball-handling skills and body mechanics to shift his body weight onto his left rapidly.
Fears is definitely a very strong riser in this early college basketball season; he hasn’t been outstanding from three and does commit quite a few turnovers, but other than that, the Oklahoma guard has been building himself quite a case to hear his name in the lottery next June.
Condon Dominates (without scoring)
Florida is one of only five unbeaten teams in college basketball this season, and the Gators look like at least an Elite Eight (maybe even F4?) team.
As a team, they are, first and foremost, an offensive juggernaut, boasting a 4th best offensive rating in the entire D1. Florida’s special sauce on offense is the play of their electric guards, Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin.
But their best NBA prospect may be sophomore big Alex Condon from Australia. Last year, I was mostly impressed by his defense, but his offensive growth this season has been truly remarkable. His efficiency has shot up significantly, with TS% going from 53 to 62%.
This mainly stems from his improved rim finishing, but Condon has also been shooting the three better, albeit on a small sample. The defenses are still willing to give up open threes to Condon, as he remains a low-volume shooter.
But what intrigued me in the North Carolina game in Charlotte was how impactful Condon was without scoring the ball, first of all, via his great playmaking. He collected five assists, and most of them were great, super-quick reads in the middle zone between the three-point line and the paint.
Condon’s speed in the open court also stood out, as he made a couple of awesome defensive plays in transition. Though he’s not quick laterally and had trouble when UNC’s shifty guards were looking for a switch to take Condon 1-on-1 at full speed, the 6’10” big is an absolute menace, being able to recover significant defenses and swat shots from behind.
One positive aspect of Condon’s contributions that won’t show on the box score or advanced metrics is that he did make plays when the Gators really needed someone to make plays. North Carolina quickly erased Florida’s double-digit lead at the start of the second half, and as they were about to close in, Condon hit a three, then set up a cutting wing with a beautiful backdoor pass, stopping the Tar Heels’ momentum.
Wooley Woos
On November 24th, Kennesaw State hosted what was probably the biggest non-con game in program history, playing a Rutgers team that, as we all know very well, is led by two highly rated NBA draft prospects: Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey.
Yet, with Bailey returning to Georgia, where he went to high school, it was KSU that emerged with a surprise victory. In that game, another freshman caught the eye: Kennesaw State’s guard Adrian Wooley.
He’s had his struggles early on, as it’s not easy being a freshman in a high usage role, even at a mid-major level. Last week, he played one of his best games of the year at Santa Clara, though it has to be mentioned that a lot of Wooley’s production came in the second half when Kennesaw State was trailing.
Wooley is at 6’5”, but I’d doubt he’s that tall, as he looks more like 6’3-ish. But other than being pretty small and skinny, Wooley has a lot of interesting aspects to his game.
I do like a lot of aspects of his shooting. He gets to the line a lot (51% FTr), though making only 68% of his shots so far at the line. Wooley has been a very good shooter this year, making 25/59 of his jump shots, and what’s really encouraging is that he punishes teams with off-the-dribble shooting at a nice rate, knocking down 36% of his off-dribble threes this season.
That, alongside a 3% STL and 28% AST rates, makes for a pretty interesting guard profile. However, he’s not a crazy passer and usually gets most of his assists by executing relatively straightforward reads. He does commit the same amount of turnovers as assists, though. Wooley is a tad too predictable for a lead guard, and he picks up his dribble a bit too easily on hedges, lacks counter moves when his initial driving lane is cut off, often resorting to pivoting around and struggling to get rid of the ball.
He’s a tad too predictable for a lead guard as Wooley is mostly looking to drive to his strong hand, which is one of the reasons why he turns the ball over a lot, and it’s what limits his half-court effectiveness.
Wooley is more of a long term prospect, as it’s more likely he’ll get snapped up by a high-major team in the portal. But he does have an interesting base of tools that makes him a player to monitor.
Stirtz Wins It
Drake has been one of the best (if not the best) stories of the college basketball season. Having lost essentially the entire team that won the MVC tournament last season, the Bulldogs hired Ben McCollum to coach the team. McCollum, who arrived from Northwest Missouri State in D2, brought a bunch of players together with him. Incredibly, it’s the end of December, and the Bulldogs have yet to lose a single game.
The best of those transfers has been Bennett Stirtz, a 6’4” guard, who made a game-winning three last week against Kansas State. He’s been looking like someone who could go through the D2 -> D1 -> NBA pipeline, following along with guys like Jaylen Wells of the Memphis Grizzlies.
Let’s get this out of the way – one of the ridiculous stats in college basketball this year is Stirtz playing 99.7% of all Drake’s minutes; he only sat for 1 minute in the opening-day win against Stephen F. Austin.
Apart from that, if there was one thing that stood out for me, it is Stirtz’s live dribble abilities; it’s one of the tools he uses to get to the rim and draw fouls at a high frequency.
Stirtz’s live-dribble abilities are more impressive when he’s looking to score and not pass, which may indicate that he has separate scoring and passing modes that he switches during games. He had 10 total assists in games against K-State and Green Bay. Only one of them was when he truly drove into the heart of the defense to set up a teammate, and that was at the end of the Green Bay game when the outcome was already settled.
That’s not to say that Stirtz is a bad playmaker. He’s posting an impressive 32% assist rate and doesn’t turn it over much. Per Bart Torvik, among all D1 players with at least 30% AST and 25% USG, Stirtz ranks 6th in assist-to-turnover ratio with 2.7. As a lead P&R guard, he does most of his damage at the top of the key, hitting rolling teammates with quick bounce passes and, sometimes, lobs. I love his ability to make quick reads and hit teammates with quick one-handed passes, both with his left and right.
Stirtz made the headlines for hitting the game-winning three against Kansas State, but on the season, he’s been struggling from downtown at just 29%, though his TS% numbers are boosted by good rim finishing and frequent visits to the line. He wasn’t an outstanding shooter in D2 either, making 33,6% of his shots, but he did knock down a respectable 41% in catch-and-shoot situations.
Caden Delivers
Before the season, Princeton was one of the most interesting mid-major teams in the country, not just because they are pretty good as a team, but also because they have two guys with some legitimate NBA interest in Caden Pierce and Xavian Lee.
For Pierce, who’s in his junior season now, the start has been surprisingly sluggish, with his numbers being down pretty much across the board. His BPM is down from 7.5 to just 2.3 and assists, and usage is down as well. Pierce, a pretty reliable free throw shooter last season, is knocking down just 59.5% from the line. The only improvement has been 3 3-point percentage going up to 40%, though Pierce is not a high-volume shooter by any means, sitting at just 3.6 attempts per 100 possessions.
In Saturday’s game against Rutgers, though, Pierce showed that he didn’t suddenly forget how to play basketball, being one of the catalysts in the Tigers’ win over the Scarlet Knights.
Pierce is one of the most unique players in all of college basketball, which is both a curse and a blessing for him. At Princeton, he’s a weird wing/center combo despite being listed at just 6’6″. He usually operates at the top of the key, functioning as a playmaking hub for the Tigers, looking for hand-offs and backdoor cutters.
Pierce is consistently able to find cutters, and a chunk of Princeton’s offense is built around that ability. Pierce has demonstrated some flashes of jaw-dropping passing, executing at angles that seem almost impossible.
I also liked some of Pierce’s defense. He was tasked with guarding Ace Bailey and did an admirable job moving his feet and contesting jump shots. As is often the case, Bailey hit some of the shots over Pierce’s head, but it’s something that you can live with on defense.
I’m curious to see what’s next for Pierce. It’s challenging to get drafted out of the Ivy League, especially when you’re having a down season. Will he go the Danny Wolf route? And even if he moved to a high major and had a great season next year, would the NBA decision-makers be willing to look beyond his obvious flaws – lack of positional size, awkward role at the next level, and below-average shooting?
The Center Hub 
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