The 2025 NBA Draft: Clarity on the University Horizon
The crucial deadline in the 2025 NBA draft process and the close of the college basketball offseason came and went on Wednesday. At 11:59 p.m. ET, players had to decide whether to stay in the draft or return to college.
Some prospects made their decisions at the draft combine earlier this month, with Carter Bryant (Arizona), Drake Powell (North Carolina), and Thomas Sorber (Georgetown) confirming their intention to remain in the draft. Others, like Boogie Fland (Florida) and Darrion Williams (NC State), announced their withdrawal.
This put on hold the imminent decisions of about 15 notable players. After weighing feedback from the combine, agency tryout days, and their final workouts with NBA teams, the latter made their decision on Wednesday night.
Once past midnight, both the draft (June 25-26) and the landscape of college basketball for 2025-26 gained clarity. Which schools benefited the most from the return of players to college? Which prospects should rise in the NBA lists in 2026? Can Florida repeat?Alofoke Deportes’ college basketball experts, along with NBA draft analysts, delve into the main stories.
Additional coverage of the NBA draft:Mock draft: Flagg to the Mavs and more
Combine: Risers, fallers | Lottery team questions
Draft assets | Top 100 rankings | Pelton’s top 30
The Impact of NIL Agreements on the NBA Draft
The lowest amount of early entry candidates (106) in a decade, and a dozen more eligible prospects withdrew at the deadline, making this one of the shallowest second rounds in a few years.
NBA teams have expressed surprise and concern about this development, wondering how effectively they will be able to assemble the summer league and G League rosters compared to previous years. However, most believe this is a temporary bottleneck (one caused by the abnormal amount of money) that will clear in the next year or two, as the players who chose to return to school this year will exhaust their NCAA eligibility.
This should ultimately lead to a group of older and more profession-ready rookies in the future, possibly with additional cachet among casual fans who have more time to learn about the biggest college basketball stars.
NBA teams also understand that they will need to adjust the way they evaluate older prospects. In the past, it was easy to criticize seniors coming off dominant seasons compared to younger players. But the level of competition in college has never been higher, with programs now able to recruit the best players from around the world, and experienced players staying longer, typically with the best teams in major conferences.
Perhaps players who stay in school until they are 22 and 23 years old, as in the past, cannot be faulted, and analytics-oriented NBA executives are trying to determine if, and to what extent, they should modify their draft models to account for this new reality, which is very different from what their formulas were built using data from the last decade or two.
While the projected top five draft picks of 2026 are collectively considered historically good, the depth of this year’s high school senior class, i.e., the 2025-26 freshmen, seems rather poor, which could lead to one of the oldest first rounds we’ve seen in some time next year.
The possibility of being selected in the second round was enough for prospects to keep their name in the draft, but with the ability to earn millions through NIL, there is a trend of players returning to college.
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Even some players projected in the first round are making the decision to return to school for up to $3 million in NIL deals, hoping to get firm guarantees from NBA teams within a year. A prospect’s decision no longer depends on waiting for their draft value to be good enough to earn real money in the NBA versus playing for free while developing at the college level.
With the salaries of the last few selected in the first round this year coming in at less than $3 million per season for the next two seasons, due to the rookie scale, the projected players in that range can now earn the same amount of money by opting to stay in college while theoretically improving their draft value.
Players who stay in college for three or four years until they turn 22 are no longer a hindrance to NBA teams, and that’s the result of both NIL and the transfer portal.
Which college basketball team is the biggest winner after the retirement deadline?
Florida was one of them. There were other winners, certainly, including Houston (Milos Uzan), Michigan (Lendeborg), Auburn (Tahaad Pettiford), and Kentucky (Otega Oweh), but the Gators went from being a team on the edge of the top 20 to a legitimate contender to start the season as the number 1 team with a real chance to win back-to-back titles.
Florida benefited from Fland’s withdrawal, as the Arkansas transfer ultimately committed to the Gators a week after making his decision. Then, Alex Condon, a fringe first-round pick, also withdrew to return to Gainesville. With both officially on the roster, coach Todd Golden has a starting five as good as any in college basketball.Alabama was also a surprise winner, with Labaron Philon announcing shortly before the deadline that he would return to Tuscaloosa. Philon said at the combine that he had closed the door on a return to Bama, but his second-round projection and the opportunity for a more significant role as a sophomore make this the sensible decision.
It’s a big boost for coach Nate Oats’ team, who had been looking for a dynamic playmaker on the perimeter.
Alex Condon’s decision to return to Florida boosts Todd Golden’s team’s prospects in 2025-26.
With the addition of Fland and the return of Condon, how well are the Gators prepared to defend their title? Florida rises to the number 1 preseason conversation as a result of its decisions. The Gators have a different roster construction than a year ago, when there were more clearly defined roles and, possibly, a better balance and depth across the entire roster. But now Golden has two shot creators and shooters in Fland and the Princeton transfer, Xaivian Lee, in the backcourt, and one of the best, certainly the biggest, frontcourts in the country with 6-11 Condon, 6-9 Haugh, 6-10 Rueben Chinyelu, and 7-1 Micah Handlogten handling most of the minutes.They’ll have to figure out how it all fits together, but there should be more optimism in Gainesville about a repeat of what was there earlier this offseason.
They will defend, as they are very well prepared, with probably the best frontcourt in college basketball. There is a lot of shooting ability in the defensive zone, with Fland, Lee, Ohio transfer AJ Brown and Urban Klavzar, who should be ready to take on a more important role in their second season in Gainesville. Figuring out the shot creation hierarchy between Lee and Fland will be important, and there are questions to be answered on the wing, but the bones are in place for a team that competes for the Final Four.Still, I would rank Purdue at number 1 on my preseason ballot due to the certainty of returning two preseason All-Americans in Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn, but reasonable minds can differ here.
The biggest driver in March is always the guard play, which puts a ton of weight on what kind of season Fland has as the presumed primary ball handler. If he can improve on what he showed in his lone season at Arkansas, both Florida and Fland should be very happy with this marriage.
Which college basketball team was hurt the most by prospects staying in the draft?
Penn State. While things had been heading in this direction for Yanic Konan Niederhauser since the combine, it still stings coach Mike Rhoades and the Nittany Lions to see him keep his name in the draft.After a relatively anonymous career at Northern Illinois in which he averaged 5.1 points in two seasons, Penn State added Niederhauser from the transfer portal last spring. The Nittany Lions were able to keep him out of the transfer portal earlier this spring and made a competitive offer to keep him, but the value of the Switzerland native will never be higher than it is now as a marginal first-round pick.
It’s also worth noting that a handful of programs will be hurt by RJ Luis Jr. and Jamir Watkins, the two best transfers available in the portal, opting to stay in the draft. With those two out of the mix, there are very few options left for schools with deep pockets that need impact players.
The transfer portal helped this draft prospect more because…
Two years ago, Yanic Konan Niederhauser was coming off a freshman season in which he averaged 2.2 points in eight minutes per game for Northern Illinois. Now he is knocking on the door of the first round after a strong junior season at Penn State and outstanding performances at the G League Elite Camp and the combine, where he measured and tested as one of the top athletes in the draft with a variety of highlight plays on both ends of the court that sparked the imagination of NBA scouts.
The 7-foot player is clearly on a different trajectory, as demonstrated by the marked improvement he has achieved in each of the last three seasons and his breakout in Chicago. That ascent probably wouldn’t have been possible without moving from the obscurity of the MAC and into the crucible of the Big Ten, where he was forced to find another gear with his intensity and put his outstanding physical tools to much greater use.
At the beginning of the season, Danny Wolf was more of a curiosity for NBA scouts than a bona fide prospect coming off a solid year at Yale. That changed in a hurry, as he proved his skill set translated against high-level competition and settled in at Michigan, playing for a creative coach in Dusty May who was committed to utilizing Wolf’s versatility and playmaking skills.
The fact that Wolf operated as a de facto point guard at times, a role he might not have been given at another school, added a level of intrigue.
Wolf (left) was projected to be selected at the 17th position in ESPN’s latest NBA mock draft.
Wolf remains a divisive evaluation among talent scouts, some of whom question the final translation of his role in a high-value NBA context. But his rise from the Ivy League to likely first-round selection signals the benefits of choosing the right school and coach, which even in the face of enormous dollar values being thrown around in the portal, should be prioritized as players make their decisions.
Which returning college prospect has the best chance to rise up the 2026 NBA draft?
Several NBA teams were very interested in taking a closer look at Joseph Tugler during the predraft process, but he ultimately decided not to declare, announcing his return to Houston nine days after his season ended with a loss in the national championship to Florida.
The 20-year-old player is the second-youngest player after Anthony Davis (Kentucky in 2012), to win the Lefty Driesell Award, given to the best defensive player in college basketball. He was also the youngest player since its inception in 2006 to win the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year. With his 7-6 wingspan, his incredible motor, his rim protection instincts, and his ability to cover ground on the perimeter, Tugler could also become a defensive game-changer at the NBA level.
If he can find a way to reduce fouls (led all draft prospects in this category per minute last season) and improve slightly on offense (54% free throw percentage), he can make a strong case as a first-round pick next season.
I’m interested to see what Tahaad Pettiford will do with a more significant role at Auburn after his positive showing at the combine. Although his size (6 feet 1 inch, 175 pounds) will work against him from a projection standpoint, I was intrigued by the blend of athleticism and skill he displayed in the scrimmages, and I’m curious to see how he develops over the next 12 months. His explosive athleticism and microwave scoring ability will help his case as a potential outlier prospect with his physical dimensions.
Beyond the likely jump in offensive usage headed his way, the most important thing Pettiford can do next season is to show he can add value in games where his shot isn’t falling. Part of that process will be expanding his game as a passer and playmaker for his teammates, and becoming a more consistently impactful defender. Pettiford will likely always be a score-first player, but if he can become increasingly efficient while maximizing his ability in other areas, it will sharpen his case as a first-round player, where he is projected to begin next season. Returning to school to work on those things should prove to be a beneficial decision.Who is an underrated prospect you like who returned to school and could be a first-round pick in 2026?
Bennett Stirtz, a 6-foot-4 point guard who played for Drake last season, was one of the breakout stars of the NCAA tournament, scoring 42 points and 12 assists in two strong performances against Missouri and Texas, showing that his game translates more than against elite-level competition after a dominant season in the Horizon League. Stirtz was ranked No. 35 in the ESPN Top 100 when he announced he would enter the transfer portal and follow his coach, Ben McCollum, from Drake to Iowa, without even bothering to test the NBA draft waters along the way.
NBA scouts won’t complain about having a full season to evaluate Stirtz in the Big Ten, where they’ll get a better idea of how his impressive ball-handling, ability to change speeds, touch, and creativity finishing around the basket translate over a full season. Stirtz is a dynamic perimeter shooter who is one of college basketball’s best passers and decision-makers, but getting a better measure of his defense and how he handles coaches game-planning against him every night will surely shed light on how high he should be drafted next June.
Zuby Ejiofor didn’t grab many national headlines this season, but the big man made a big leap at St. John’s, making the All-Big East first team and also being named the conference’s most improved player. Although his team’s season ended in the second round of the NCAA tournament, Ejiofor’s 23 points and 12 rebounds against Arkansas left a positive impression, showcasing his physicality and motor in the paint. While undersized for a center, Ejiofor’s overall impact on the game makes him an interesting role player candidate at the next level.Ejiofor’s rugged and total style elevates his team’s floor every night, and the fact that he recently turned 21 will play in his favor as he enters his senior season. Continuing to work on his physique, improving his mobility, and refining his offensive decision-making could broaden his appeal in the NBA. It seems likely that coach Rick Pitino will rely on him again, leaving room for a step forward in production that could significantly improve his prospect status.
