College basketball’s best conference was well represented during the first night of the 2025 NBA draft.
A total of five players who spent the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season in the SEC were among Wednesday night’s 30 first-round selections as part of this week’s draft.
The second round of the draft — which is being held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, — is set for Thursday night. That’s when Kentucky basketball’s top draft prospects, Koby Brea and Amari Williams, are expected to be taken.
It’s hard to understate just how impressive the SEC was last season in the national college basketball landscape.
Fourteen of the league’s 16 schools qualified for the NCAA Tournament. Both Florida and Auburn reached the Final Four, with the Gators winning the national championship. Two other SEC schools, Alabama and Tennessee, qualified for the Elite Eight. And three other SEC programs — Arkansas, Kentucky and Ole Miss — reached the Sweet 16 and played in the second weekend of the national postseason.
And nothing underscores the SEC’s impressive depth more than the fact that several of Wednesday night’s first-round draft picks came from teams that underachieved, from a team perspective, last season.
With the first round of the 2025 NBA draft now in the books, here’s a look at each SEC basketball player from last season that was selected among the draft’s first 30 picks.
Tre Johnson
No. 6 overall pick by the Washington Wizards.
The 6-foot-6 Johnson was a one-and-done player at Texas last season, where he averaged 19.9 points per contest. Johnson was the SEC’s leading scorer during the 2024-25 campaign.
He was also one of the most high-volume shooters in all of college basketball. Johnson attempted 525 total shots from the field, which tied for the 15th-most shot attempts among all college players.
Johnson was a five-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting class, and Kentucky was involved in his recruitment under former head coach John Calipari. The Wildcats were one of the final schools cut from consideration by Johnson, who is from North Texas.
In his only college game against Kentucky as a college player, Johnson scored 32 points and grabbed a season-best nine rebounds as the Longhorns upset the Wildcats in Austin.
Texas qualified for the field of 68 in the NCAA Tournament, but the Longhorns lost to Xavier in the First Four. Former coach Rodney Terry was then fired and replaced by Sean Miller, who was previously the coach at Xavier.
Jeremiah Fears
No. 7 overall pick by the New Orleans Pelicans.
Another one-and-done SEC star from last season, the 6-foot-4 Fears averaged 17.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game for Oklahoma.
Fears also averaged 1.6 steals per game and shot better than 85% from the foul line for the Sooners.
Fears — whose older brother Jeremy Fears Jr. plays at Michigan State — was supposed to be an incoming college basketball freshman this year. But, Fears reclassified from the 2025 to the 2024 recruiting group when he committed last summer to head coach Porter Moser and the Sooners.
Fears was ranked as a four-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting class.
With Fears, Oklahoma made the NCAA Tournament field as a 9 seed, but the Sooners lost to UConn in the round of 64.
Kentucky fans got well acquainted with Fears last season. He played in two memorable games against the Wildcats, both of which ended with UK’s Otega Oweh (who began his college career at Oklahoma) making game-winning, buzzer-beating shots.
Fears had 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists when UK went to Norman and beat Oklahoma. He tallied 28 points, five assists, four rebounds and three steals during the second round of the SEC Tournament, when Kentucky again topped Oklahoma in Nashville.
Collin Murray-Boyles
No. 9 overall pick by the Toronto Raptors.
One of the more notable disconnects between elite player talent and team results last season in college basketball featured 6-foot-7 forward Collin Murray-Boyles and his South Carolina team.
Murray-Boyles averaged 16.8 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.3 blocks per game for the Gamecocks, while shooting 58.6% from the field. But, South Carolina was a dreadful 12-20 overall and an SEC-worst 2-16 in league games.
In the 2023 recruiting group, Murray-Boyles was a four-star prospect.
As a freshman at South Carolina during the 2023-24 season, Murray-Boyles averaged 10.4 points, 5.7 rebounds and shot 59.7% from the field for a Gamecocks team that was a 6 seed in March Madness.
Walter Clayton Jr.
No. 18 overall pick by the Washington Wizards. (Clayton is being traded to the Utah Jazz).
The 6-foot-3 Clayton is by far the most veteran of the SEC players who heard their name called during Wednesday’s NBA draft first round.
After beginning his college career by playing two seasons for Rick Pitino at Iona, Clayton spent the last two seasons at Florida and spearheaded the Gators’ run to the 2025 NCAA Tournament title.
As a senior leader at Florida, Clayton averaged a career-best 18.3 points and 4.2 assists per contest. Clayton was also a dynamic distance shooter for Florida last season, connecting on 38.6% of his attempts from deep. He averaged nearly eight 3-pointers attempted per game.
Clayton is also a true example of four-year college development. He was unranked as a high school recruit in the 2021 recruiting group.
Across 139 career college games (110 starts), Clayton averaged 15.2 points per game while shooting 38.6% from 3-point range and 87.9% from the foul line.
Clayton missed only five games during his four-year college career.
Asa Newell
No. 23 overall pick by the New Orleans Pelicans. (Newell is being traded to the Atalanta Hawks).
The 6-foot-11 Newell represents another top one-and-done draft selection from the SEC.
Newell averaged 15.4 points, 6.9 rebounds and 1 block and steal each per game during his lone college season at Georgia.
This more than delivered on the recruiting hype that surrounded Newell, who was a five-star prospect in last year’s recruiting class.
Georgia went 20-13 overall last season and was a 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament. While this represented the Bulldogs’ first trip to March Madness since 2015, Georgia lost to 8 seed Gonzaga by 21 points in the round of 64.
Newell did get the upper hand on Kentucky, though, in the only meeting of the season between the Bulldogs and Wildcats. Newell had 17 points and 7 rebounds as Georgia beat UK in Athens, which represented Mark Pope’s first SEC loss as the Kentucky head coach. UK has lost three straight games to Georgia in Athens.