Senior Instability: Belmont/KU/OR Boast 2 Sr. 1st-Rounders in Last 7 Years

The 2023 NBA draft marked the fourth time in last seven years no senior was among lottery picks although there were more than three seniors chosen in opening round for only time in that span. No more than five seniors were selected in opening round in any of last 12 drafts.

Oklahoma's Buddy Hield (6th overall choice in 2016) and Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky (9th in 2015) are the only single-digit draftees among seniors in the last 17 years. The last college senior using all four years of eligibility to be the first overall pick in the NBA draft was Cincinnati center Kenyon Martin Sr. in 2000. Twenty years later, exemplifying how times changed, his son with the same name was one of a dozen NBA draftees (including foreigners) who never attended a four-year American university.

Belmont (Dylan Windler in 2019 and Ben Sheppard in 2023), reaching the 20-win plateau for the 13th consecutive campaign, is the only school other than Kansas (Udoka Azubike in 2020 and Ochai Agbaji in 2022) and Oregon (Payton Pritchard in 2020 and Chris Duarte in 2021) to have more than one senior picked in opening round of NBA draft in the last seven years. By contrast, Kentucky - in the final year prior to lottery picks - contributed two seniors among the top six selections in 1984 (Sam Bowie and Melvin Turpin). Insofar as the second round is virtually meaningless, following is a look at seniors selected in the first round in last dozen years: