Better Early Than Never: 28 Undergrad NBA Picks for UK in Last Eight Years

With three selections among the top 14 picks this year, Kentucky has a stunning 28 undergraduates selected in the NBA draft in the last eight seasons under coach John Calipari. The remainder of the SEC supplied 18 such selections during that span. As a further means of comparison, in-state rival Louisville had only eight such undergrads in the last 47 years after Montrezl Harrell, Chinanu Onuaku and Donovan Mitchell bolted early for the pros the past three campaigns.

UK is expected to increase its lead over runner-up North Carolina in this "defector" category in 2018 when the Wildcats should have multiple players leave school with eligibility remaining for the ninth straight season to declare for the NBA draft. It is debatable whether the undergrads should have returned to school for additional seasoning or even attended college in the first place. The following list of 13 schools have had at least a dozen defectors since the introduction of hardship cases in 1971:

Kentucky (36) - 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)

North Carolina (26) - 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)

UCLA (23) - 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)

Duke (21) - 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)

Kansas (20) - 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)

Louisiana State (18) - 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)

Arizona (17) - 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)

Connecticut (17) - 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)

Michigan (16) - 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)

Syracuse (14) - 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)

Texas (14) - 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)

Memphis (13) - 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)

Ohio State (12) - 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)