Kentucky men’s basketball fans spent Wednesday sweating out the stay or go NBA draft decision of Wildcats star guard Otega Oweh, hoping UK would benefit from this year’s most striking hoops trend.
For all the carping about the “wild west” that is big-time college sports in the era of booster-funded NIL payments to players, the revolution in how college athletes are compensated is boosting the overall quality of men’s college hoops in two ways that are on display this spring.
In case you have not been paying attention to NBA draft decisions other than Oweh’s, something that would have been unthinkable in the pre-NIL era has been playing out: Players who previously would have all but assuredly turned pro now have financial incentive to remain in college hoops due to NIL funds.
Auburn’s Tahaad Pettiford was picked to go No. 22 in the 2025 NBA draft by nbadraft.net and No. 30 by Yahoo Sports in its mock draft — both first-round projections.
However, Pettiford announced Wednesday he is returning to play a sophomore season for Bruce Pearl.
Former UAB star Yaxel Lendeborg was projected to go No. 23 in the first round by nbadraft.net and No. 24 by Yahoo Sports.
Instead, Lendeborg became another projected first-rounder who opted out of the draft. He will play college hoops for Michigan in 2025-26.
Florida’s Alex Condon was picked to go early in the second round, No. 38, by both Yahoo and ESPN. Yet he is returning to Gainesville to chase a second straight NCAA championship.
Houston Cougars guard Milos Uzan was mocked to go No. 37 in the 2025 NBA draft by Yahoo and No. 48 by nbadraft.net. Yet Uzan is coming back to H-Town hoping to claim the NCAA title that slipped away from Kelvin Sampson and Co. this past season.
Darrion Williams, the 2025 NCAA tourney hero for Texas Tech, was projected to go No. 47 in the NBA draft by ESPN and No. 48 by Yahoo. He is instead staying in college hoops to play for North Carolina State.
What has happened this year with so many players who were expected to be drafted eschewing pro hoops to stay in college basketball reflects a dynamic that has been building since 2021 — when college athletes acquired the right to make money from their name, image and likeness without it impacting their NCAA eligibility.
Prior to the NIL era, financial reality would have probably forced college stars of the recent past who had uncertain NBA futures such as Oscar Tshiebwe, Armando Bacot, Johni Broome and Hunter Dickinson to pursue professional basketball opportunities even if they were outside the United States.
With NIL (and the NCAA-granted “free COVID year”), Bacot, Broome and Dickinson instead all became five-year college hoopers. Tshiebwe was able to return for a senior year at Kentucky after having been the consensus collegiate national player of the year as a junior.
Meanwhile, NIL money is playing a role this spring in enhancing the talent level in men’s college basketball in a second area.
The number and quality of international recruits entering NCAA men’s hoops has never been higher. Rather than stay in Europe to play professionally, well-regarded players such as Croatia’s Andrija Jelavic and Serbia’s Filip Jovic are coming to America to play college hoops for Kentucky and Auburn, respectively.
For international players, NIL has changed the financial equation and made college basketball attractive to such an extent that FIBA (the Fédération Internationale de Basketball) now wants NCAA schools to pay European pro teams a “transfer fee” for lost players.
With all the kvetching that has accompanied the era of player empowerment in college athletics, no sport has benefited more from NIL, on the whole, than men’s basketball.
So, of course, the college sports hierarchy is fully invested in reducing the financial packages that are keeping veteran star players in and bringing top international talent into the sport.
That would be done via a de facto salary cap that is contained along with a revenue sharing component in the proposed House settlement, the still pending agreement that would settle a consolidated antitrust suit on the part of a class of college athletes vs. the NCAA and the power conferences.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Oweh made Kentucky backers giddy when he announced he would be staying in Lexington to play his senior season.
️BBN! ️ @OtegaOweh is BACK
️ @KentuckyMBB IS JUST DIFFERENT #BBN #ItsJustDifferent pic.twitter.com/oMs5PZqXu8
— Alvin Brooks III (@Coach_AB3) May 28, 2025
Over recent years, having more good players stay in men’s college basketball has improved the overall quality of the sport. While not the only factor, NIL has been the biggest reason that has happened.
In an industry that so struggles to see itself for what it really is, it’s fascinating but not surprising how much resistance there is to accepting that reality.
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