Underclassmen who submitted their names for draft consideration have until tomorrow – May 25th – to decide whether or not to remain in the draft. If those players don’t withdraw from consideration by Wednesday’s deadline, they’ll forgo their remaining NCAA eligibility and will be available to NBA teams in June.
For many prospects projected to come off the board early, that decision is a no-brainer, but we’ll see plenty of lower-level prospects announce today and tomorrow that they’ll be returning to school for at least one more year. Here are some of the latest draft decisions made by early entrants:
- Junior center Mamadou Ndiaye tells Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link) that he plans to remain in the NBA draft, forgoing his final year of college eligibility at UC Irvine. Despite the decision, Ndiaye isn’t a lock to be drafted.
- Purdue’s athletics department has announced that 6’8″ forward Vince Edwards will return to the Boilermakers for the upcoming season, removing his name from draft consideration. “We are excited that Vince is returning for his junior year. The feedback he received in his workouts will only help him continue to improve and become one of the best players in the Big Ten in the upcoming season,” head coach Matt Painter said in a statement.
- Dayton guard Charles Cooke has elected to return to school rather than staying in the draft, coach Archie Miller tells Goodman (Twitter link). The Flyers’ leading scorer has one year of eligibility left.
- New Mexico guard Elijah Brown will head back to school for his junior season, according to Goodman (Twitter link).
- Purdue’s Caleb Swanigan and Kentucky’s Marcus Lee are among the players who are still undecided on whether or not to withdraw from the draft, according to Scott Agness of VigilantSports.com and Goodman, respectively (Twitter links).