Which College Basketball Program Has the Most Draft Picks?
The NBA Draft has seen plenty of prospects from plenty of colleges and universities. But which colleges and universities have the most draft picks and active players in the league?
That will be the focus of today’s article, so let’s jump right in.
Colleges with the Most NBA First-Round Draft Picks
Kentucky edges out North Carolina with first-round picks (55 vs 53), followed by Duke, UCLA, and Kansas. Notably, LSU and St. John’s are towards the bottom of the list with 16 apiece, while Michigan State and UConn are tied at 21.
Colleges with the Most #1 Picks
Unsurprisingly, Duke leads this category at four, but the amount of schools with two #1 overall picks is intriguing. The schools that stand out to me here are UTEP (Jim Barnes, 1964) and Duquesne (Dick Ricketts, 1955, and Si Green, 1956). Could Duke get a fifth one with Paolo Banchero? We’ll have to wait and see.
Which Colleges Have Produced the Most NBA Players All-Time?
Try as I might, I could not find data for anything past 2019. Still, Kentucky leads the pack with players in the league at 107, followed by UCLA (97), UNC (90), Duke (83), and Kansas (72) to round out the top-five.
Colleges with the Most Players on 2021–22 NBA Rosters
This list had over 100 entries, so I had to cut it off at colleges who have at least two players on NBA rosters. A couple of notable numbers here are Colorado (5), Nevada (4), Pitt (3), and Utah State and UC Santa Barbara (2).
College Conferences with the Most Players on 2021–22 NBA Rosters
As anticipated, the heavy-hitter conferences are leading the pack far and away, but some surprising numbers are the Colonial and Patriot conferences (3) and Big Sky and Missouri Valley with one player each.
I hope all of this data has been beneficial in noting the history of collegiate players’ paths to the NBA. Though many colleges have dominated the draft scene for the past several years (which could still be the case even with the rise of the G-League Ignite and Overtime Elite), the league is still very diverse, spanning many different colleges and universities from a multitude of regions across the U.S.
Let’s see which college dominates this year’s draft and who gets their first prospects in the league!
