Men's College Basketball Stars Who Are Getting Snubbed in 2025 NBA Mock Drafts
There always has been a fine line between "great college basketball player" and "great NBA prospect."
For every Zion Williamson who wins the Wooden Award en route to becoming the No. 1 pick in the draft, there are several Oscar Tshiebwe, Luka Garza and Jalen Brunson types who win National Player of the Year and then don't even get drafted in the first round.
However, the current divide between the lists of the top 20 or 30 candidates for NPOY and first-round projections for NBA mock drafts feels even more pronounced than usual this year.
Granted, that's probably because a lot of those NPOY candidates are fifth-year seniors, and the NBA wants 18-year-olds who are still developing as opposed to 24-year-olds who may have already reached their ceiling. And goodness knows the freshmen on the NPOY lists (Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey, Kasparas Jakucionis, Tre Johnson and Derik Queen) are well-represented in the draft lottery projections.
There are some fantastic players being overlooked, though, including a handful of sophomores and juniors who shouldn't be ignored due to age.
Players are presented in alphabetical order by last name. Statistics current through the start of play on Tuesday, Feb. 18.
Johni Broome, Auburn
1 of 7
Season Stats: 18.1 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 3.4 APG, 2.7 BPG, 30% 3PT
Johni Broome is at least generally expected to be drafted, which is more than can be said for the rest of this list.
However, the Auburn star who is neck-and-neck with Cooper Flagg for NPOY is nowhere close to Flagg for No. 1 overall pick, landing somewhere in the 40s (mid second round) in the latest mocks.
To anyone who has watched an Auburn game this season, this is, of course, preposterous.
Broome has a hand in virtually everything Auburn does, and he is a drastically more well-rounded player than when Bruce Pearl first plucked him from the transfer portal in 2022.
In his first two seasons at Morehead State, Broome was a double-double machine and a phenomenal shot-blocker, but one who shot 0-for-5 from three-point range and averaged just under one assist per game played.
Now, he has respectable three-point range and more than respectable court vision. Broome has six games this season with at least six assists. He also blocked multiple shots in each of those contests and recorded a points-rebounds double-double in four of them, including the recent massive showdown with Alabama (19-14-6-2).
His career free-throw percentage (60.9) is a bit concerning, but aside from that, he's the total package at this level. And though he's a graduate senior, he's not that old, not turning 23 until a few weeks after the draft.
When the NBA messes around and lets this guy fall to the Warriors as a second-round pick and he becomes a spark plug type of addition alongside Draymond Green, don't say we didn't warn you.
Walter Clayton Jr., Florida
2 of 7
Season Stats: 17.2 PPG, 4.3 APG, 3.6 RPG, 1.3 SPG, 36% 3PT
Heading into Saturday's game against South Carolina, Walter Clayton Jr. was putting up numbers damn near identical to last year.
We're talking 17.5 PPG compared to 17.6 last year, a difference in both three-point percentage (36.5 vs. 36.4) and free-throw percentage (87.7 and 87.1) that is entirely negligible and no change in rebounding at 3.6 RPG both years. So, if the NBA didn't want him a year ago, it probably wants him even less now that he's a year older.
One area where Clayton has made positive strides, though, is his passing, as losing Zyon Pullin after last season has forced him into much more of a lead guard role as opposed to an off-the-ball shooter.
For a 6'3" guard who isn't exactly a defensive specialist, being able to run the offense is just about a must if you expect to get any sort of run at the next level. And with Clayton's rate of assists per game about 60 percent greater than it was last year, Florida has blossomed into one of the best teams in the nation.
It's good enough for him to be in the mix for first-team All-American. We'll see if it's good enough for the NBA. But there aren't many better shooting strokes out there right now.
Donovan Dent, New Mexico
3 of 7
Season Stats: 19.7 PPG, 6.3 APG, 2.6 RPG, 1.6 SPG, 37% 3PT
Let's start with the elephant in the room.
Donovan Dent? Not a perimeter shooter.
His percentage is fine, and he's shooting a bit more than he did last year. Still, he averages fewer than two attempts per game, and they're mostly just to keep the defense honest for all the times he wants to drive past them.
In a league where even the 7'2" centers are expected to have some three-point range, a 6'2" point guard who barely shoots from the perimeter could be a hard sell.
If Rajon Rondo could make it work for 16 years, though, why not Dent?
This Lobo's ability to drive and dish is almost unmatched on a national scale. On Saturday morning, Dent was 10th in the nation in two-point field goals made, as well as 10th in total assists. He also spends a lot of time at the free-throw line, where he's making close to 80 percent of his attempts this season. Pretty good defender, too, averaging just a shade under 2.0 steals per 40 minutes for the third consecutive year.
And, again, he has a decent percentage when he does shoot threes. Maybe if the junior doesn't go pro this year, he'll make it a point to showcase his range next season.
PJ Haggerty, Memphis
4 of 7
Season Stats: 21.2 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 3.8 APG, 2.0 SPG, 42% 3PT
PJ Haggerty is having a sensational season for the Memphis Tigers, as he did last year at Tulsa. If Memphis continues to hang around in the mix for something like a No. 6 seed, there's a good chance he'll be a first-team All-American and the unofficial "Non-Major Conference National Player of the Year."
One big change in his game from one year ago is Haggerty has blossomed into a much more legitimate perimeter weapon. He made just 29 percent of his 2.5 attempts per game in 2023-24, but he's up to 42 percent on 3.3 attempts this year.
Somebody needs to tell the mock draft community, though, because Haggerty is being egregiously overlooked for a third-year lead guard who can do it all.
Maybe there are concerns that his bully-ball style of play just won't translate to the NBA; that he's too small (6'3", 190 lbs.) to try to play with physicality in a regular season with nearly three times as many games as a college basketball season.
He's holding up quite well thus far, though, putting in close to 40 minutes of heavy lifting on both ends of the floor on a regular basis.
Graham Ike, Gonzaga
5 of 7
Season Stats: 16.7 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 1.4 APG, 36% 3PT
Graham Ike's per-game numbers don't particularly jump off the page. But what does stand out is that Gonzaga's star big man does it all in just 22 minutes per game.
Thus, on a per-40 basis, Ike is sitting at 31 points and north of 13 rebounds, which is senior-year Zach Edey territory (31.5 points, 15.2 rebounds) and a major testament to his impact while on the court.
It's not that he can't play more minutes. Ike averaged 31.6 minutes per game at Wyoming back in 2021-22, and he played a bit more last season at Gonzaga than he is playing this year. But Mark Few is basically platooning Ike and fellow center Braden Huff, so as to always have a fresh, dominant big man for Ryan Nembhard to feed in the post.
Hopefully it's not a question of durability that is keeping him out of the draft competition.
More likely, it's questions about what he brings to the table on the defensive end of the floor, barely averaging a combined total of one block + steal per game. However, among Gonzaga's regulars, Ike probably is the most valuable defender, so that doesn't feel like a fair complaint.
Ike plays like a junkyard dog with his hair on fire. Surely someone can use that at the next level.
Braden Smith, Purdue
6 of 7
Season Stats: 16.0 PPG, 8.8 APG, 4.7 RPG, 2.4 SPG, 39% 3PT
Zach Edey did end up going top-10 in the draft and has been playing pretty well thus far as a rookie, but it wasn't until midway through his fourth year of dominance that the NBA started to believe he could be of real value. After all, he came back for a second Wooden Award because the Association didn't really want him yet after the first one.
Well, here we go again with another Purdue star, putting on a show that has the college basketball world buzzing almost every time he steps on the floor, but evidently is not on the radar of any draft scouts.
Braden Smith has been nothing short of phenomenal for the Boilermakers, a stone-cold lock for first-team All-American.
He is leading the Big Ten in both assists and steals by a wide margin. He's also one of the more lethal three-point shooters in the country, especially (at least anecdotally) in the final five minutes of close games. And he's doing it all on a team that only really has two other scoring threats, which makes his assist rate even more incredible.
Smith is only 6'0" and he isn't exactly an explosive athlete, so you can almost appreciate why he isn't likely to be drafted. But he's skilled. He's cerebral. He finds passing lanes that don't even seem to actually exist. And after three years of starting every game at Purdue, it's pretty clear that winning is in his DNA.
If he doesn't get a shot in the NBA, what are we even doing here?
JT Toppin, Texas Tech
7 of 7
Season Stats: 17.2 PPG, 9.1 RPG, 1.2 BPG, 1.0 SPG, 1.0 APG, 33% 3PT
About a week removed from JT Toppin going for 41 points and 15 rebounds in the double overtime win over Arizona State, this one feels like the most unforgivable oversight of them all.
Toppin was playing great long before that game, of course. He was extremely valuable as a freshman last season at New Mexico, but now he's doing his thing on a regular basis against even better competition.
We never got a chance to see what he could do against Houston, controversially ejected before the first media timeout of that game. But in the two games against Arizona, Toppin went for a combined 41 points and 29 rebounds against a borderline top-10 team. He was also unstoppable against Iowa State, Cincinnati, TCU, Oklahoma State and UCF.
He does completely disappear at times, which is a little concerning. But when Texas Tech makes it a point to feed the big man, he usually does feast.
He's a plus defender. He's not a great three-point shooter, but he can hit them on occasion. And after he was a bit of a string bean last season, Toppin has packed on the muscle necessary to be a serious force in the paint—with definite room for more growth in the weight room.
But the biggest reason it's a head scratcher that Toppin has been an afterthought in most mocks is that he's not even 20 years old yet, celebrating that birthday less than two weeks before the draft begins. If he does go pro, he could be one of those guys who rises meteorically during the combine and pre-draft workouts.
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