To the Draft

The Coaching Carousel is still spinning with Billy Donovan moving from his longtime home at Florida to new challenges with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the transfer recruiting market continues on, but one facet of college basketball's hot stove league wrapped up at the end of last month as the deadline to declare for the NBA Draft passed.

The off season seemed to start with almost every key underclassmen declaring that they'd be going pro.  Duke's three and Kentucky's seven led the way early, and upper lottery picks D'Angelo Russell and Stanley Johnson confirmed the obvious late in the cycle.  The annual WTF entries were present, too.  Former Maryland reserve Ashton Pankey got a degree and had a fine season for MAAC Champ Manhattan this year, his fifth in college, and decided to leave a year of eligibility on the table to pursue an NBA career.  Pankey has no chance of being drafted, of course, but with former teammates Jordan Williams and Terrell Stoglin declaring early in the past few years, Gary Williams' last team somehow has the distinction of having three early entries on the roster.  Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Anyway, 48 guys put their name on the list, the third highest total of the nine years we've had the One and Done rule.

2007	2008	2009	2010	45	48	2013	2014	2015
32	38	39	50	44	49	46	45	48

Things look a little "worse" (for a college basketball fan) when you concentrate on only the major conference players.  The mid-majors (and below) have some first round talent among this year's crop of early entrants like Cameron Payne of Murray State and Georgia State's RJ Hunter, who created this year's March Madness Moment, but the lion's share of NBA Draft talent is obviously in the Power 6. 36 power conference players declared early, tied for the most in the last nine years.

2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
23	26	26	32	33	36	30	36	36

Who was hurt most?  The SEC had a staggering 13 players declare early.  We all know about Kentucky's 7 players, but Arkansas, LSU  and even lowly Florida had a pair as well.  Fringe prospects like Tyler Ulis and Dorian Finney-Smith are the best of the bunch returning to school next season.

ACC	Pac-12	SEC	Big Ten	Big XII	Big East
11	5	13	4	3	0

The Big East didn't have a single player leave early.  It was a senior laden conference last year, with only D'vauntes Smith-Rivera of Georgetown and Providence's Kris Dunn seriously considering throwing their names into the ring.  There's a lot of talk about what the future holds for the newly configured Big East and so it will be interesting to see whether the lack of high end talent continues.  The conference landed only two of the top 45 players in the 2015 recruiting class.

One trend emerges when you look at the entire nine years of data concerns the Big Ten.  The conference has been struck by far fewer early entries than peer conferences at just 3 a year, while other power conferences average 5.5 a year.  It might not sound like a huge difference, but imagine how different the perception of the B1G would be heading into next season if Melo Trimble and Caris LeVert decided to enter their names into the draft.  Two players won't kill a league, but it can go a long way to dropping it in from first to third in the mythical league power rankings the following winter.