1 NBA Draft fact about March Madness means good news for these 5 teams, including Duke
This isn't a surprise, but one of the most important things an NCAA team needs to actually win March Madness is a future NBA player on its roster.
While that does not necessarily mean that the best player in men's college basketball hears his name called at No. 1 overall, it certainly helps to build a roster around a player who has the abilities to carve out a career for himself in the pros.
A few years ago, Kevin Flaherty wrote an interesting article about how often national champions have first-round picks on their roster. Here is what he said (via CBS Sports):
"Of the 45 men's college basketball national champions since 1976, the year of the NBA/ABA merger, 44 featured at least one first-round pick in a future NBA Draft.
Even that number is slightly deceptive: 1987 Indiana stands as the outlier, with Steve Alford standing as the team's highest draft pick, going to the Dallas Mavericks in the second round. But Alford was the 26th player taken, which would mark him as a first-round pick today. In 1987, each round had just 23 selections, with the NBA moving to 30 picks when the Charlotte Bobcats joined the league in 2004.
So slightly rephrased, 45 of 45 title-winners have produced at least one top 30 pick (which equates to a current day first-round pick)."
This article outlined each of the top-30 picks from the eventual title winners between 1976 and 2021. Since then, this trend has only continued in the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
Kansas won in 2022 and Ochai Agbaji was selected at No. 14 overall while Christian Braun was selected at No. 21 overall. UConn won the championship in 2023 and Jordan Hawkins was selected with the No. 14 overall pick. They won the title again in 2024 and then Stephon Castle was selected at No. 4 overall and Donovan Clingan was picked at No. 7 overall.
So what exactly does that mean for those trying to predict who win the tournament this season? More likely than not, based on history, the tournament winner will have a future NBA player on its roster.
That is good news for schools with bona fide first-rounders like Duke (e.g. Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, and Khaman Maluach), Michigan State (Jase Richardson), Maryland (Derik Queen), Alabama (Labaron Philon), and Arizona (Carter Bryant).
But it doesn't necessarily project doom for teams that do not currently have anyone projected in the first round. Perhaps a good tournament run helps a prospect from Florida (e.g. Alex Condon or Walter Clayton Jr.), Auburn (Johni Broome and Tahaad Pettiford), Houston (JoJo Tugler), Tennessee (Chaz Lanier), Texas Tech (J.T. Toppin and Darrion Williams), or Iowa State (Milan Momcilovic and Joshua Jefferson).
This fact is less encouraging for teams like Kentucky, Gonzaga, Wisconsin, Clemson, Texas A&M, Kansas, and Purdue. None of these schools have any prospect currently projected at No. 60 or better on the latest edition of Rookie Scale's Consensus Big Board.
While most of those named mentioned above are not currently projected to hear their name in the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft, a strong performance in March Madness and eventually cutting down the nets can go a long way to improve draft stock.
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