Much of the country shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. Collin Murray-Boyles used that time to help transform his basketball game.
Five years later, the Columbia product and South Carolina Gamecocks standout is poised to reap the benefits of his hard work and personal growth. He’s expected to be taken in the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft, which begins Wednesday in Brooklyn.
Murray-Boyles will attend the draft in person along with family, friends, members of USC coaching staff and girlfriend Chloe Kitts, a standout on the Gamecock women’s basketball team.
If Murray-Boyles goes early as expected, he’ll be the eighth former Gamecock taken in the first round of the NBA Draft. Renaldo Balkman was the last USC player to go in the first round. The New York Knicks took him 20th in 2006. Tom Riker became the highest USC player taken in the draft when he went No. 8 overall to the Knicks in 1972.
Murray-Boyles would be the second Gamecock drafted in the last three years, joining GG Jackson, who went to the Memphis Grizzlies in the second round of the 2023 draft.
It also would be the second straight year a Columbia-raised player will go in the first round of the NBA Draft. Oklahoma City drafted former Keenan High star Dillon Jones last year. He won an NBA title with the Thunder on Sunday.
“It will be a lot of emotion,” Collin’s older brother James Murray-Boyles told The State last week. “It’s hard to wrap my mind around it. It will be one of the greatest feelings. It will be inspiring for the whole family.”
Game develops greatly before college
James Murray-Boyles, who is eight years older than his brother, recalled those 6 a.m. workouts during the spring of the pandemic after Collin’s freshman year of high school. The family credits those workouts with playing a pivotal role in Collin’s development.
Sean Boyles, their father, put his two sons through the early-morning workouts before he went to work each day.
Those workouts included weight training and then time on the family’s outdoor basketball court. It helped cement a foundation into Collin Murray-Boyles’ basketball career going forward.
“He wasn’t happy we were doing the workouts so early in the morning,” James said of his younger brother. “Those two to three months he really turned the corner and never looked back, and he was on a trajectory ever since then.”
Those early workouts continued during the summer before his junior year at A.C. Flora High. Joshua Staley, the former A.C. Flora coach who’s now at Ridge View, was inside the Falcons’ gym with Sean Boyles and working with Collin on developing his game.
“That is where the legend was made — during his freshman, sophomore and junior years,” Staley said. “We would be the first ones at the school, working on his hips and footwork, two, three, sometimes four days a week. We would work on hips and footwork and some basketball stuff too. But I knew if he got his hips and footwork right, he had a chance to be special. He just took off.
“The thing I remember the most is how easy he is to coach. ... The mental aspect is always there. I am not surprised where he is.”
Murray-Boyles didn’t have a Division I offer going into his junior year, but that changed after a breakout season for A.C. Flora in which he helped the Falcons to the Class 4A state championship game. He earned Class 4A Player of the Year honors and averaged 18.3 points, 11.4 rebounds, 5.3 blocks, 2.5 assists and 2.3 steals per game.
South Carolina was among those to show interest. Lamont Paris, who took the USC job in the spring of 2022, offered Murray-Boyles a scholarship in June. He committed to the Gamecocks less than two months later.
Murray-Boyles left A.C. Flora to play his senior season Wasatch Academy in Utah, where he took another step in his game while playing against top-flight competition in the Nike EYBL Scholastic League. The league included such players as projected No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg, who was at Montverde Academy in Florida.
“It was probably the biggest decision of my life, even more than when I picked to come to South Carolina,” Murray-Boyles said in 2023 at the team’s media day. “It was very, very intense and happened really, really fast. It gave me a little more responsibility.
“That was a really good experience for me to play against the top players in the country and get college experience. Our coaching staff gave us the college feel with the workouts. It gave us really good expectations of what to expect in college.”
Playing against top-flight competition, Murray-Boyles averaged 15 points, 8.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.8 blocks and a steal per game at Wasatch. He also saw his recruiting stock rise and finished ranked as a top-100 prospect by ESPN and 247Sports.
More importantly, Murray-Boyles was better prepared to face the rigors of playing in the Southeastern Conference.
NBA Draft projections
USC special assistant Carey Rich, who has known the Murray-Boyles family for more than 20 years, remembers discussing Collin in Paris’ office after one of the Gamecocks’ early practices.
“He already was going to be part of the rotation. But after about the first two weeks of practices, his body is looking totally different, he is jumping out of the freaking gym and he’s jumping with power,” Rich said. “Coach Paris said, ‘I knew he was going to be part of what we did this year but it will be hard to keep him on the bench.’ ”
An illness slowed down Murray-Boyles early in his 2023-24 freshman campaign, but he eventually cracked the starting lineup a couple weeks into the season. He averaged 10.4 points, 5.7 rebounds and one block per game as the Gamecocks made it to the NCAA Tournament.
In 2024-25, Murray-Boyles was one of the lone bright spots in the Gamecocks’ 12-20 season. He averaged 16.8 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.3 steals and was a second-team All-SEC selection.
“Saw his confidence grow when he got to college and he realized he was one of the best players in the country, if not the world,” Staley said.
NBA scouts and personnel were regular visitors to USC this season, making the odds that Murray-Boyles would return for a third college season very doubtful. Paris this spring still held open a roster spot in case he chose to withdraw his name from the NBA Draft.
“Lamont and I went to Chicago (for the NBA Combine) but there was a genuine buzz around him,” Rich said. “When we got back on the plane to head back to South Carolina, we said we have probably seen Collin Murray-Boyles play in a Gamecock uniform for the last time.”
“Every year there is the analytics darling, and he is this year’s darling because of his defensive efficiency and his impact.”
SB Nation wrote an extensive piece on the analytics behind Murray-Boyles’ success on both offense and defense. Most draft analysts compare him to Golden State’s Draymond Green or Minnesota’s Julius Randle. The Green comparisons are because of his ability to affect the game in all aspects, not just on offense.
“He jumps off the chart with his defensive numbers and his production,” Rich said. “He can guard anyone and is a high motor guy. He is an every-play guy. He hated coming out of practice.”
Murray-Boyles told reporters at the NBA Combine in May that one of his goals was to win an NBA Defensive Player of the Year award during his career.
One of the knocks on Murray-Boyles is his ability to shoot the outside shot, something he continues to work toward as he gets ready to begin his pro career.
“Just getting shots up is the biggest thing for me,” Murray-Boyles said at the NBA Draft Combine. “Building small functional habits like flicking my wrists, holding my follow through just everything to lead up to having a good form is what I’ve been doing. I’m trying to rep it out consistently, even when I’m tired, to keep the same form.”
Most mock drafts have Murray-Boyles going between pick Nos. 10-20. According to KGW8-TV, Portland worked out Murray-Boyles over the weekend. The Trail Blazers have the 11th pick in the draft.
NBA teams have been calling Paris as recently as a few days ago to gauge his opinion of the forward. The coach on Monday said he’s has been telling teams to draft Murray-Boyles based on the floor, not on his potential.
Paris believes Murray-Boyles will be capable of helping an NBA team immediately because of his versatility on both sides of the floor. He also said how he had to make Murray-Boyles shoot at times, so he isn’t going to need to score 20 points or more in a game to be an effective player in the league.
“If you need him to play in a game relatively soon, then you take him,” Paris said. “I think he is rugged, sturdy, strong. He defends at an elite level and he knows how to play basketball at such a high level when you surround him with really good teammates.
“... Some guys average 22 (points) in a college game and someone asks them to six points a game in the NBA. Stand in a corner and make this when they double-team Steph Curry. That role could be hard to make the transition. But that is who Collin is already. He already is a server, a servant as a teammate. He just happened to be our most talented guy.”