NBA Draft 2012: Terrell Stoglin Joins List of Unprepared Early Entrants

The deadline for college basketball underclassmen to declare for the 2012 NBA Draft came and went on April 29th, but not before Maryland's Terrell Stoglin slid under the door as one of the last (and most curious) early entrants in this year's pool.

The junior-to-be considered testing the waters in March, before deciding to return for his senior season. But he later reneged on that notion once he was slapped with a season-long suspension for violating the university's student-athlete code of conduct.

Rather than stick around, then, Stoglin decided to take his talents to the draft.

That might not be the smartest decision, to say the least.  

Stoglin grades out as a combo guard, if only because he's small (6'1, 185 pounds) for a shooting guard and doesn't have a game that's all that well-suited to the point. There's no doubt that he can score; he led the ACC in that department with 21.6 points per game last season, becoming the first Terrapin to do so since Joe Smith in 1995. But with the draft already overstocked with early entrants, particularly with skill sets similar to Stoglin's, it seems unlikely that he'll wind up as one of the lucky 60 to come away with some form of employment from draft day in late June.

Is he any better than Texas' J'Covan Brown, another high-scoring 'tweener who could go undrafted? Or Villanova's Maalik Wayns, who's one of the top point guards in a weak draft at the position but still figures to fall a ways into the second round? He's certainly nowhere near the stratosphere of Weber State's Damian Lillard, who looks like a surefire lottery pick at this point.

Of course, curious draft decisions are anything but unusual amongst underclassmen. This year alone, we've seen the likes of FIU's Dominique Ferguson and Alabama's Tony Mitchell opt for the NBA amidst issues at school, be it Ferguson's desire to transfer or Mitchell's outright dismissal.

Those two will have Stoglin at their side on draft day, though all three will likely have to find work in the D-League or overseas long before they can even hope to realize their NBA dreams.

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