For the second consecutive year, a college basketball rule change made the sport better.
Last year, the rules committee changed playing rules — resulting in a higher-scoring, more aesthetically pleasing game. This time around, coaches banded together with NBA officials and NCAA folks to change the pre-NBA draft process and allow underclassmen a chance to test the proverbial waters — another big success.
Players received both additional time and information that helped them make better informed decisions about the draft, likely leading to fewer cautionary tales of college players giving up their eligibility only to go undrafted.
In the short run, the new system deserves rave reviews. It’ll certainly get just that from the following five programs, which were the early-entry deadline’s biggest winners:
1. Villanova
Returning: Josh Hart, Kris Jenkins
The Wildcats could become the first team since Billy Donovan’s 2006 and 2007 Florida teams to repeat as national champions. At the very least, they’re as well-positioned as they could be to do just that. Kris Jenkins, the buzzer-beating hero of Nova Nation, barely dipped his toes in the draft-testing waters. Josh Hart, who was serenaded by chants of “one more year!” in the wee hours after the title game, gave fans exactly what they asked for, bowing out of the draft Tuesday night.
Though the Wildcats will most definitely miss the leadership of Ryan Arcidiacono and Daniel Ochefu, who both graduated, they return everybody else — and “everybody else” is good enough to potentially take home a fourth consecutive Big East title … and maybe earn another trip to the national championship game.
2. Oregon
Returning: Dillon Brooks, Tyler Dorsey, Chris Boucher
The Ducks will be Pac-12 favorites and perhaps a preseason top-five team as they now return five of their seven top scorers from last year's squad that won both the league's regular-season and tournament titles and reached the NCAA tournament's Elite Eight as the West No. 1 seed. Brooks led Oregon in scoring, but all three guys listed here averaged in double figures.
This offseason will be a bit strange for coach Dana Altman, but strange in a good way. For once, the focus will not be integrating a bunch of talented transfers into his system, which had been the way he'd built most of his successful Ducks teams in the past. Now, he has talent, continuity — and some high expectations.
3. Xavier
Returning: Trevon Bluiett, Edmond Sumner
Because the Musketeers were shocked by Wisconsin on a last-second shot in the NCAA tournament's Round of 32, Xavier did not get enough credit for how good it was a season ago. Villanova's Jay Wright said the Musketeers were Final Four-caliber, and we can expect much more of the same now that leading scorer Trevon Bluiett has withdrawn from the draft. Edmond Sumner, who had a breakout season, didn't even test the waters. (The Musketeers did lose Jalen Reynolds, who signed with an agent.) Still, Bluiett and Sumner will once again anchor a dynamic offense, and a team that will once again challenge Villanova for Big East supremacy.
4. North Carolina
Returning: Justin Jackson, Kennedy Meeks
Think the Tar Heels will take a major step back after their title-game run a year ago? Think again. The return of both Justin Jackson and Kennedy Meeks (alongside Isaiah Hicks) means that UNC will have one of the nation's premier frontcourts to go along with experienced guards Nate Britt and Joel Berry II.
Though the Tar Heels can't replicate the leadership of guard Marcus Paige or the nightly double-double they got from forward Brice Johnson — they lost both to graduation — there's plenty of talent remaining in Chapel Hill.
5. Indiana
Returning: Thomas Bryant, James Blackmon, O.G. Anunoby
Yes, the Hoosiers lost Troy Williams to the draft. But keeping the other three? That's huge for a trio of young players on a team that was one of the improved most in college basketball over the course of last season.
Blackmon (whose knee injury prematurely ended his season last December) was the team's second-leading scorer, Bryant its fourth. Though there are still shoes to fill — that of Williams and Yogi Ferrell — it looks like coach Tom Crean has the right pieces to keep the Hoosiers among the Big Ten's best.
