One of my favorite parts about the NBA Draft evaluation process actually lies within my preseason walk-throughs. I take great joy in shuffling through the pack of talent entering college basketball, finding out which five-star prospects are worth the hype, which ones are a bit overrated, what incoming freshman is going to be this year’s sleeper prospect, what returner is ready to make the leap–you get the gist. However, one sector of basketball that I hadn’t dipped my toes in much to date has been JuCo hoops. Seemingly every year, multiple players from a two-year school emerge as a legitimate prospect or high-end college basketball talent. Despite this being a recurring trend, I have largely turned a blind eye to that position of evaluation. However, this year I wanted to branch out a bit and try something new, so I looked into the JuCo scene. The result: a lot of ugly hoops, high foul totals, raw talent, sloppy turnovers, poor big man play, and zone defense.
However, even through all the malodorous hoops, there were countless fun talents, five of whom I will highlight today. It is worth noting that this is not a ranking; these guys are likely not the five best players entering college basketball this upcoming season from a Juco or community college. If you want rankings, head over to Ersin Demir’s Substack; he has 10 times the Juco content you’ll find here, on top of player rankings. You probably should just give his page a look in general if you haven’t. But, with all that aside, let’s jump into this piece about five high-end talents buried in the teeth of Juco.
Trent Lincoln—TCU
Kicking things off, what better place—or rather player—to start with than the#1-ranked JuCo prospect in the 2026 class per 247Sports: Trent Lincoln. It will be a recurring theme throughout this piece where I tell you I was unfamiliar with a player before doing a dive on them, as three of the five players I will discuss today I found through doing research for another player. That said, Lincoln was not one of those three, as he was someone I was familiar with before breaking down the tape, and someone I walked away from my dive somewhat skeptical of.
But before I step into any of that skepticism, I want to dive into what makes him the player that he is, as it didn’t take long at all for me to realize why he had the billing that he did as a recruit. The first thing that came to mind when watching his tape, and something I couldn’t shake for the rest of the dive was his similarity to Arkansas guard Darius Acuff Jr. Now, typically, it’s difficult to compare a lefty (Lincoln) to a righty (Acuff), as the entirety of their approach is inverted because of the hand they favor. That said, it’s still hard to ignore how many commonalities they have. Acuff is an inch smaller and five pounds heavier, putting their body compositions in a very similar vein to one another. Along with that, they both move and play similarly—on both sides of the basketball—a comment that should frighten some.
That said, let’s dive into what he does well, which for those accustomed to Acuff’s game, is a lot of different things. For one, Lincoln’s sturdy, strong frame plays into his favor given its pairing with the pace he plays with. Lincoln does a great job at dipping high and low to deceive defenders in front of him, changing both the height of his hips and dribble in any given scenario. His go-to move does seem to be a left-to-right snatch crossover that he sets up with hesitation and momentum changes. Once around his defender, Lincoln is really creative with how he handles himself. He uses that aforementioned frame to eat up space given by the defender, allowing him to take more direct driving angles. This is a micro skill that he uses to his advantage in the pick-and-roll as well—an area that, overall, he does a great job in.
