Better Early Than Never: UK Has 46 Undergrad Choices in Last 15 NBA Drafts

With two selections this year, Kentucky had a stunning 46 undergraduates selected in the NBA draft in the last 15 seasons under recently-departed coach John Calipari. As a means of comparison, in-state rival Louisville had only 11 such undergrad picks in the last 51 years after Montrezl Harrell, David Johnson, Donovan Mitchell, Jordan Nwora, Chinanu Onuaku and Ray Spalding bolted early for the pros over past 10 campaigns. Duke has had undergrad draft picks in each of the last 11 years (total of 30).

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Kentucky and Duke is Northwestern, which is the lone power-league member never having an undergraduate selection after Penn State's Tony Carr was chosen in the second round five years ago. It's unclear as to whether UK, failing to have an undergrad selected in 16-year span from 1972 through 1987, will increase its lead over runner-up Duke in this "defector" category in 2025 after Mark Pope succeeded Calipari if the school loses a player with eligibility remaining for the 16th straight season to declare for the NBA draft. It is debatable whether the undergrads should have returned to school for additional seasoning or even taken up classroom space in the first place. The following list of 13 schools have at least 15 early-defector draftees since the introduction of hardship cases in 1971:

Kentucky (54) - Tom Payne (1971), Rex Chapman (1988), Jamal Mashburn (1993), Antoine Walker (1996), Ron Mercer (1997), Nazr Mohammed (1998), Rajon Rondo (2006), Jodie Meeks (2009), Eric Bledsoe (2010), DeMarcus Cousins (2010), Daniel Orton (2010), Patrick Patterson (2010), John Wall (2010), Brandon Knight (2011), DeAndre Liggins (2011), Anthony Davis (2012), Terrence Jones (2012), Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (2012), Doron Lamb (2012), Marquis Teague (2012), Archie Goodwin (2013), Nerlens Noel (2013), Julius Randle (2014), James Young (2014), Devin Booker (2015), Willie Cauley-Stein (2015), Andrew Harrison (2015), Dakari Johnson (2015), Trey Lyles (2015), Karl-Anthony Towns (2015), Skal Labissiere (2016), Jamal Murray (2016), Tyler Ulis (2016), Bam Adebayo (2017), De'Aaron Fox (2017), Malik Monk (2017), Hamidou Diallo (2018), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2018), Kevin Knox (2018), Jarred Vanderbilt (2018), Tyler Herro (2019), Keldon Johnson (2019), P.J. Washington (2019), Tyrese Maxey (2020), Immanuel Quickley (2020), Nick Richards (2020), B.J. Boston (2021), Isaiah Jackson (2021), Shaedon Sharpe (2022), TyTy Washington (2022), Chris Livingston (2023), Cason Wallace (2023), Rob Dillingham (2024), Reed Sheppard (2024)

Duke (41) - William Avery (1999), Elton Brand (1999), Corey Maggette (1999), Carlos Boozer (2002), Mike Dunleavy Jr. (2002), Jay Williams (2002), Luol Deng (2004), Josh McRoberts (2007), Gerald Henderson (2009), Kyrie Irving (2011), Austin Rivers (2012), Rodney Hood (2014), Jabari Parker (2014), Tyus Jones (2015), Jahlil Okafor (2015), Justise Winslow (2015), Brandon Ingram (2016), Harry Giles (2017), Frank Jackson (2017), Luke Kennard (2017), Jayson Tatum (2017), Marvin Bagley III (2018), Wendell Carter (2018), Gary Trent Jr. (2018), R.J. Barrett (2019), Cam Reddish (2019), Zion Williamson (2019), Vernon Carey Jr. (2020), Tre Jones (2020), Cassius Stanley (2020), Matthew Hurt (2021), Jalen Johnson (2021), Paolo Banchero (2022), AJ Griffin (2022), Trevor Keels (2022), Wendell Moore Jr. (2022), Mark Williams (2022), Dereck Lively II (2023), Dariq Whitehead (2023), Kyle Filipowski (2024), Jared McCain (2024)

North Carolina (31) - Bob McAdoo (1972), James Worthy (1982), Michael Jordan (1984), J.R. Reid (1989), Jerry Stackhouse (1995), Rasheed Wallace (1995), Jeff McInnis (1996), Antawn Jamison (1998), Vince Carter (1998), Joseph Forte (2001), Raymond Felton (2005), Sean May (2005), Rashad McCants (2005), Marvin Williams (2005), Brandan Wright (2007), Wayne Ellington (2009), Ty Lawson (2009), Ed Davis (2010), Harrison Barnes (2012), John Henson (2012), Kendall Marshall (2012), Reggie Bullock (2013), P.J. Hairston (2014), J.P. Tokoto (2015), Tony Bradley (2017), Justin Jackson (2017), Nassir Little (2019), Coby White (2019), Cole Anthony (2020), Day'Ron Sharpe (2021), Harrison Ingram (2024)

UCLA (29) - Richard Washington (1976), Stuart Gray (1984), Tracy Murray (1992), Jelani McCoy (1998), Baron Davis (1999), Jerome Moiso (2000), Trevor Ariza (2004), Jordan Farmar (2006), Arron Afflalo (2007), Kevin Love (2008), Luc Mbah a Moute (2008), Russell Westbrook (2008), Jrue Holiday (2009), Tyler Honeycutt (2011), Malcolm Lee (2011), Shabazz Muhammad (2013), Jordan Adams (2014), Kyle Anderson (2014), Zach LaVine (2014), Kevon Looney (2015), Ike Anigbogu (2017), Lonzo Ball (2017), TJ Leaf (2017), Aaron Holiday (2018), Jaylen Hands (2019), Peyton Watson (2022), Amari Bailey (2023), Jaylen Clark (2023), Adem Bona (2024)

Arizona (24) - Eric Money (1974), Coniel Norman (1974), Brian Williams (1991), Mike Bibby (1998), Gilbert Arenas (2001), Richard Jefferson (2001), Michael Wright (2001), Andre Iguodala (2004), Marcus Williams (2006), Jerryd Bayless (2008), Derrick Williams (2011), Grant Jerrett (2013), Aaron Gordon (2014), Nick Johnson (2014), Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (2015), Stanley Johnson (2015), Lauri Markkanen (2017), Deandre Ayton (2018), Josh Green (2020), Nico Mannion (2020), Zeke Nnaji (2020), Christian Koloko (2022), Bennedict Mathurin (2022), Dalen Terry (2022)

Kansas (25) - Norm Cook (1976), Darrin Hancock (1994), Paul Pierce (1998), Drew Gooden (2002), Julian Wright (2007), Darrell Arthur (2008), Mario Chalmers (2008), Brandon Rush (2008), Cole Aldrich (2010), Xavier Henry (2010), Marcus Morris (2011), Markieff Morris (2011), Josh Shelby (2011), Thomas Robinson (2012), Ben McLemore (2013), Joel Embiid (2014), Andrew Wiggins (2014), Kelly Oubre (2015), Cheick Diallo (2016), Josh Jackson (2017), Billy Preston (2018), Christian Braun (2022), Gradey Dick (2023), Jalen Wilson (2023), Johnny Furphy (2024)

Michigan (24) - Campy Russell (1974), Tim McCormick (1984), Sean Higgins (1990), Chris Webber (1993), Jalen Rose (1994), Juwan Howard (1994), Maurice Taylor (1997), Robert Traylor (1998), Jamal Crawford (2000), Darius Morris (2011), Trey Burke (2013), Tim Hardaway Jr. (2013), Mitch McGary (2014), Glenn Robinson III (2014), Nik Stauskas (2014), D.J. Wilson (2017), Moe Wagner (2018), Iggy Brazdeikis (2019), Jordan Poole (2019), Franz Wagner (2021), Moussa Diabate (2022), Caleb Houstan (2022), Kobe Bufkin (2023), Jett Howard (2023)

Connecticut (22) - Donyell Marshall (1994), Ray Allen (1996), Richard Hamilton (1999), Khalid El-Amin (2000), Caron Butler (2002), Ben Gordon (2004), Emeka Okafor (2004), Charlie Villanueva (2005), Josh Boone (2006), Rudy Gay (2006), Marcus Williams (2006), Hasheem Thabeet (2009), Kemba Walker (2011), Andre Drummond (2012), Jeremy Lamb (2012), DeAndre Daniels (2014), Daniel Hamilton (2016), James Bouknight (2021), Jordan Hawkins (2023), Andre Jackson (2023), Stephon Castle (2024), Donovan Clingan (2024)

Louisiana State (21) - DeWayne Scales (1980), Jerry Reynolds (1985), John Williams (1986), Chris Jackson (1990), Stanley Roberts (1991), Shaquille O'Neal (1992), Ronnie Henderson (1996), Randy Livingston (1996), Stromile Swift (2000), Brandon Bass (2005), Tyrus Thomas (2006), Glen Davis (2007), Anthony Randolph (2008), Justin Hamilton (2012), Johnny O'Bryant (2014), Jarell Martin (2015), Jordan Mickey (2015), Ben Simmons (2016), Tremont Waters (2019), Cameron Thomas (2021), Tari Eason (2022)

Texas (18) - LaSalle Thompson (1982), Chris Mihm (2000), T.J. Ford (2003), LaMarcus Aldridge (2006), Daniel Gibson (2006), P.J. Tucker (2006), Kevin Durant (2007), D.J. Augustin (2008), Avery Bradley (2010), Jordan Hamilton (2011), Cory Joseph (2011), Tristan Thompson (2011), Myles Turner (2015), Jarrett Allen (2017), Mohamed Bamba (2018), Jaxson Hayes (2019), Greg Brown III (2021), Kai Jones (2021)

Memphis (17) - Larry Kenon (1973), William Bedford (1986), Vincent Askew (1987), Sylvester Gray (1988), Penny Hardaway (1993), David Vaughn III (1995), Lorenzen Wright (1996), Dajuan Wagner (2002), Shawne Williams (2006), Chris Douglas-Roberts (2008), Derrick Rose (2008), Elliot Williams (2010), Will Barton (2012), Precious Achiuwa (2020), James Wiseman (2020), Jalen Duren (2022), Josh Minott (2022)

Ohio State (16) - Clark Kellogg (1982), Jim Jackson (1992), Michael Redd (2000), Mike Conley Jr. (2007), Daequan Cook (2007), Greg Oden (2007), Kosta Koufos (2008), B.J. Mullens (2009), Evan Turner (2010), Jared Sullinger (2012), Deshaun Thomas (2013), D'Angelo Russell (2015), Keita Bates-Diop (2018), Malaki Branham (2022), E.J. Liddell (2022), Brice Sensabaugh (2023)

Syracuse (15) - Pearl Washington (1986), Billy Owens (1991), Carmelo Anthony (2003), Donte Greene (2008), Johnny Flynn (2009), Wesley Johnson (2010), Fab Melo (2012), Dion Waiters (2012), Michael Carter-Williams (2013), Tyler Ennis (2014), Jerami Grant (2014), Chris McCullough (2015), Malachi Richardson (2016), Tyler Lydon (2017), Elijah Hughes (2020)