Koa Peat Turns From ‘Forgotten’ to Instant Star in Arizona’s Win Over Defending Champs

LAS VEGAS — Welcome to college basketball, Koa Peat.

The challenge, at least on paper, was immense. No matter how highly touted, asking an 18-year-old freshman to make his college debut against the defending national champion and its loaded frontcourt seemed ripe for a bumpy start. Instead, the Arizona native made an early case to be one of the stars of the sport in 2025–26.

The final line: 30 points, seven rebounds, five assists in 36 minutes, willing No. 13 Arizona to a monster season-opening, 93–87 win over No. 3 Florida. How he did it? Arguably even more impressive, taking it to a preseason first-team AP All-American in Alex Condon from the opening tip, dominating an imposing front line made up of players three and four years older than him that had cut down the nets in San Antonio in April.

“I thought that was a matchup [Peat vs. Condon] that we’d have a good chance at winning tonight and we did not,” Florida coach Todd Golden said.

Hype surrounding this loaded 2025 high school class has been bubbling for years, at least in NBA circles. Scouts, who in recent years have been greenlit to spend more time evaluating top high school and events, often eschewed following around older players to spend time watching the likes of AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer as young teenagers. In some years, Peat would’ve been a top-three prospect in his class after an absurdly productive high school career. Instead, he landed at No. 9 in the final composite rankings for 2025 per 247 Sports. Even an outstanding U19 World Cup with Team USA during which he was America’s third-leading scorer and leading rebounder wasn’t enough to get Peat into the same sentence as the likes of Peterson and Dybantsa. Tommy Lloyd, who offered Peat a scholarship in the fall of his freshman year of high school, always knew his guy was special. He finally got to show it Monday night.

“It was a coming-out party for him,” Lloyd said. “Everyone has known about him, but no one has really studied him and watched him. He’s a special player.”

Lloyd coached Peat with the bright lights on before as the head coach of that USA U19 team, so perhaps he was more aware of what to expect. The rest of the country? Maybe not. Peat didn’t play in the McDonald’s All-American Game or Hoop Summit, two major flashpoint events for NBA evaluators to check in on top talent. He said in a summer interview with Hoops HQ he felt “kind of forgotten.” Few will forget his performance Monday night.

Peat has deep football lineage (father Todd and brother Andrus both played in the NFL) and in another life might have been an elite edge rusher or tight end prospect. The raw power and physicality he played with Monday would have left any uninformed observer shocked to find out he was the second-youngest player to see the floor in the game. He repeatedly bullied his way to the rim, overpowering Condon, Rueben Chinyelu, Thomas Haugh and anyone else the Gators sent his way. He drew foul after foul, helping to knock Chinyelu and Condon out of the game early and going to the free throw line 12 times in the process.

But perhaps more impressive than his overwhelming drives to the rim was how under control and mature a game he played. He never looked sped up and rarely got the type of tunnel vision that gets young bigs in trouble. He was a highly effective playmaker, with Arizona regularly just putting him in ball screens in the middle of the floor and allowing him to make plays out of the short roll. Nothing Florida did defensively could slow him down.

Peat’s true coming-out moment came at one of the game’s most critical junctures. Florida, which had trailed the entire second half, tied the game at 70 with seven minutes to play on a Xaivian Lee three. Peat’s next two possessions swung the game to Arizona’s favor for good. First, a highlight-reel alley-oop that produced the loudest crowd pop of the night in Las Vegas, skying way above the rim for a one-handed flush.

Koa Peat has arrived....MY GOODNESS pic.twitter.com/1oEeR5jwzA
— Quinn Fishburne (@QuinnFishburne) November 4, 2025

The next trip, Peat snatched a long rebound off a Haugh missed three and thundered down the floor for another jam. Two dunks, 24 seconds apart, that gave Arizona a lead it would never relinquish.

And for good measure, Peat knocked in 3 of 4 at the stripe in the closing moments, upping his tally to 30 on the night. And even with all that, Lloyd was still ready to push his super freshman for even more.

“Should’ve been double-digit boards, Koa,” Lloyd said with a grin as his star sat to his right. “We’ll get there.”

If Monday was any indication, it could be a season of record-setting performances from the Gilbert, Ariz., native. And with him, the Wildcats have proven 24 hours into the new season that they’re capable of taking on anyone.