The full roster of former Kentucky basketball players available for selection in the 2025 NBA draft is now set.
On Wednesday afternoon, Otega Oweh announced that he will return to UK for the 2025-26 season.
Mark Pope’s second Kentucky basketball team will return its leading scorer from last season’s Sweet 16 squad, and plenty of talented newcomers will be joining Oweh to raise the Wildcats’ ceiling.
Simultaneously, Oweh’s decision to return to Lexington takes a potential NBA draft target off the board.
Currently, only one member of last season’s Kentucky basketball team — fifth-year guard Koby Brea — is expected to be chosen in this year’s NBA draft, which will take place on June 25 (first round) and 26 (second round).
In total, six members of last season’s Kentucky team are eligible for selection in the NBA draft. Joining Brea in this regard are Ansley Almonor, Lamont Butler, Andrew Carr, Jaxson Robinson and Amari Williams. Their college basketball careers are all over.
But only Brea is considered a likely draft selection at this stage, less than one month out from the event.
Where is Koby Brea projected to be taken in 2025 NBA draft?
According to the latest mock drafts from national outlets, you can expect Brea — who played four college seasons at Dayton and one at Kentucky — to hear his name called June 26, when the second round of the NBA draft takes place.
CBS Sports has Brea going off the board with the 53rd overall selection to the Utah Jazz. ESPN has Brea going 54th to the Indiana Pacers. That’s also where The Athletic has Brea going.
Another national outlet is particularly bullish on Brea’s professional potential.
Kevin O’Connor, the NBA senior analyst at Yahoo, has Brea being taken with the No. 34 overall pick by the Charlotte Hornets. This would also be in second-round territory, but nearly 20 picks ahead of where most other projections have Brea.
Of course, players’ individual NBA draft stock ebbs and flows each day. Fallout is also still occurring from college players electing to either return to school (like Oweh) or keep their names in the NBA draft pool. The deadline to make this choice was less than 48 hours ago.
One thing that does appear clear from these mock drafts is that Brea is Kentucky’s clear-cut best choice for a draft pick this summer.
None of the other ex-Cats from last season who are draft eligible — Almonor, Butler, Carr, Robinson and Williams — are widely projected as draft selections. This may come of some surprise to UK fans, especially in the case of Williams, whose professional outlook seemed to be on the rise during UK’s NCAA Tournament run in March.
Koby Brea to become Mark Pope’s first NBA draft pick
Should Brea hear his name called during this year’s NBA draft, it will represent history for both Pope and the Kentucky basketball program.
During Pope’s nine combined seasons as the head coach at Utah Valley and BYU, he never oversaw a future NBA draft pick. That will likely change following his 10th season as a college head coach.
On the Kentucky front, the Wildcats had a total of 50 NBA draft picks during the John Calipari coaching era. Brea would be the first of the Pope era.
Another ex-Cat from the Calipari era, Adou Thiero, will also likely be drafted this summer. Thiero — who played last season for Calipari at Arkansas — is also projected to be a second-round pick.
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