2024 NBA Draft: College basketball's winners and losers (2024)

Life couldn't get much better forDan Hurley and the Connecticut Huskies. UConn has won each of the last two National Championships, generated a ton of positive publicity when Hurley very publicly turned down an offer to become theLos Angeles Lakers' head coach,and now, they've produced the most picks in this year's draft.

Former five-star and McDonald's All-American Stephon Castle proved that you don't have to get a ton of shots or even be the number one option at UConn to be a top pick (No. 4 overall to the San Antonio Spurs). Castle's one-and-done status paired with a national championship should only help the Huskies lure more elite talent to Storrs.

Homegrown center Donovan Clingan showed that there are still NBA teams that value a traditional big with size. Clingan went No. 7 overall to the Portland Trailblazers and leaves UConn with two titles in two college seasons.

And then maybe even more important, Hurley and the Huskies scored big wins for their development and ability to find previously under-the-radar talent in the transfer portal. Tristen Newton(East Carolina) and Cam Spencer(Loyola Maryland and then Rutgers)two guards who began their careers at mid-majors,were taken at No. 49 and No. 53 in the second round. UConn proved they can find the right pieces from portal and plug them into key roles to win at the highest level

It's good to be the King and at this point there's no disputing UConn's status as the Kings of college basketball.

It's not just UConn who has been winning big for the past few years. The entire Big East is riding a serious winning streak.

In a time where football drives decisions in collegiate athletics, the one major conference that doesn't bring gridiron dollars to the table looks to be thriving more than ever. The 2024 NBA Draft was just another example of that.

In addition to the Huskies' success, the Big East was one of only three conferences to have multiple teams with multiple draft picks. The Big East was second overall in total draft picks with eight. UConn had four draft picks.Marquettehad two players selected. And bothProvidence and Creightonproduced first round picks with Friars guard Devin Carter going No. 13 and Jays guard Baylor Scheierman going No. 30 to the NBA champion Celtics.

The two-night draft was good for the Big East.

There are probably some people scratching their head at both Kentucky and Arkansas being winners in this year's draft. Just hang in there with us for a minute.

As they've done for years, Kentucky produced multiple draft picks. Freshmen Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham both went in the top-10. No surprise there --- producing one and done talent has been standard operating procedure for the Wildcats. Then, Antonio Reeves was taken on the second night giving the Wildcats three picks.

Thanks to this year's results, then Kentucky passed Duke for the most first-round selections since the draft went to two rounds in 1989. Mark Pope isn't responsible for those picks, but there's zero doubt he'll be able to tap into the program's tradition sending prospects to the NBA as he looks to sell the new direction of the program.

So, why is Arkansas a winner? It's simple. John Calipari is the Razorbacks coach now and anybody who thinks he won't be able to lure tons of NBA-caliber talent to Fayetteville is off their rocker. Arkansas' official hoops account was quick to tout Calipari's draft success and after Sheppard and Dillingham – how these guys didn't start is another conversation for another day – went in the first round, Calipari arrived on campus with 37 first-round picks during his time at Kentucky on his resumé. Adding a coach with that type of draft success is a major win for the Razorbacks.

If you polled even the most hardcore of college basketball fans, not many would have picked Colorado to be one of only three teams with more than two players drafted. In fact, only UConn had more players taken than the Buffaloes, and only Kentucky was able to match them with three draft picks after Cody Williams, Tristan da Silva and KJ Simpson.

Draft night tied a bow on one of the most successful seasons in Colorado basketball program history. Although they were right on the NCAA Tournament bubble and had to play in the First Four, it was the Buffs first appearance in the tourney since 2021 and they were able to set program records for victories after advancing to the round of 32.

Despite an injury-riddled freshman year, Williams showed why he was a highly touted five-star wing coming out of high school. Head coach Tad Boyle and his staff's reputation for finding hidden talent was certainly enhanced when Da Silva and Simpson left as draft picks after arriving in Boulder without a ton of hype.

The Buffs have lost a lot and will have a lot of questions to answer as they prepare for their return to the Big 12, but draft night tied a nice bow on a strong 2023-24 season.

This is about what could have been for Kansas in 2023-24 and the what-ifs looming for 2024-24 if Johnny Furphy had returned.

Look, there aren't many people outside of the Jayhawks fanbase shedding any tears for Bill Self and Kansas. KU had two players selected in the draft and was one of the only eight college teams that had multiple players chosen.

Jayhawk fans have to be wondering what could have been this year had Kevin McCullar not been injured, and then just how stacked they could be next year had Johnny Furphy returned. It has to sting a little.

There are already many way-too-early preseason rankings that have Kansas as a favorite to make next year's Final Four and for Self to win his third title. They loaded up in the portal. You know what would really put the Jayhawks over the top? A versatile forward with size who can shoot it from deep. It's pretty well accepted that Furphy probably had some developing left to do but as a projected top 20'ish pick he had to leave. Had Furphy known he might slide into the second round there's a good chance he comes back to Kansas for year two. Furphy on Kansas' 2024-25 roster would have taken them from pretty loaded to downright filthy.

The 2023-24 season was an exciting one in the SEC. On a nightly basis, it was as fun, fast-paced, and exciting a league as there was in the country. The SEC has a budding power in Alabama after Nate Oats led the Crimson Tide to a Final Four berth. That being said, this article is about the 2024 draft, and for as entertaining as the SEC was during the 2023-24 season, they fell short in the draft.

If you removeKentucky and its three draft picks, only one other SEC program produced a pick. And even that pick, Tennessee wing Dalton Knecht, endured one of the biggest slides of the first round when he fell from a projected top-10 pick to No. 17 after the Los Angeles Lakers finally took him off the board.

The Big Ten tied the SEC for fewest draft picks amongst power programs with just four, but at least they spread theirs around with four programs getting players taken compared to the SEC's two.

Objectively speaking, Rodney Terry ended up having a pretty solid year during his first full season as the head coach at Texas. The Longhorns won over 20 games and won a game in the NCAA Tournament. On draft night, though, they came up a bit short. What had to be even tougher was seeing how the first recruiting class under Terry could have looked.

Initially included in the Longhorns class were 2023's No. 1 ranked player Ron Holland and top-25 guard AJ Johnson. Both decided to spurn the Lorghorns for professional options. After a season with G League's Ignite program, Holland went No. 5 overall. Johnson went No. 23 after a season in Australia's NBL.

There's no way to know just how many more games Texas would have won with that duo, but it would have assuredly been more. Also, Texas and Terry would have been able to tout their development and first-round draft picks as major cards to play in recruiting poker.

Go figure, the conference that produced the most draft picks, the Pac-12, isn't a conference anymore.

Does anything sum up the current status of college athletics better than a conference that no longer exists leading the pack for most picks (nine) in the 2024 draft? It is almost poetic and at the core, it kind of sucks.

We wrote earlier that Colorado tied for the second most players selected at three. But USC, thanks to the Lakers picking Bronny James, was also one of only eight total teams with multiple draft picks.Arizona, California, UCLA and Washington State also all had players selected.

Just when fans of the Pac-12 could be beating their chests about how much NBA talent their schools produced, the conference is no more, and now all we have to look forward to are those classic LA to Piscataway road trips that we've come to cherish each winter...