Only 106 players declared early for the NBA draft, the league announced earlier this month, the smallest number of early entrants since 91 players declared as underclassmen in 2015.

The reason is obvious: NIL. The ability for college athletes to land major-money deals for their name, image and likeness has changed the equation for many borderline draft picks, who now have the option of making more money in school than sitting near the end of the bench for an NBA franchise.

The 106-player list of entrants has been trimmed in the past few weeks as many high-profile players have decided to spend at least one more season on the college ranks. That includes standouts who will compete for postseason hardware – led by new Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg, Florida forward Alex Condon and Kentucky guard Otega Oweh.

In the bigger picture, the biggest winner of the declaration deadline has to be the SEC. After a record-setting year that established the SEC as the strongest conference in the country, the league could be even better this season with a deep collection of players opting out of the draft.

Led by Michigan, the SEC and Duke, here are the biggest winners and losers from the deadline:

Winners

Michigan

The Wolverines will start as the favorite in the Big Ten and one of the top-ranked teams in the preseason USA TODAY Sports men’s basketball poll after convincing Lendeborg to follow through on his transfer from Alabama-Birmingham. The senior was one of the most productive players in the country last year, averaging 17.7 points, 11.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game, joining Larry Bird as the only players in Division I history to post at least 600 points, 400 rebounds and 150 assists in a season. (That pretty much says it all.) With Lendeborg in the middle and three additional impact transfers – former North Carolina guard Elliot Cadeau, former Illinois forward Morez Johnson and former UCLA center Aday Mara – joining the mix, coach Dusty May has constructed a roster built for a Final Four run.

Florida

Condon had an uneven NCAA tournament but came up huge in the championship game against Houston, illustrating his potential along with the need to hone his game before taking the next step into the NBA. Junior center Rueben Chinyelu also backed out of the draft, while forward Thomas Haugh decided not to enter the process and will see an increase in minutes with three key seniors, led by Walter Clayton Jr., gone from last year’s team. The Gators also added one of the biggest transfers of the spring in former Arkansas guard Boogie Fland – another player that considered turning pro before staying in school.

The SEC

The bad news for the SEC: Florida is going to be really good, once again. But key draft decisions will help some of the top teams in the league bring down the Gators. Surprisingly, Alabama will bring back sophomore guard LaBaron Philon, who started 29 games as a rookie and was widely expected to land in the back half of the first round. Auburn guard Tahaad Pettiford will return in an effort to boost his draft stock, he said this week. Texas A&M forward Mackenzie Mgbako will stick with the Aggies after transferring in from Indiana. Karter Knox will return to Arkansas for his sophomore season, giving John Calipari’s second team a big boost – though it’s not all great news for the Razorbacks. And Oweh’s decision to opt out of the draft is huge for the Wildcats, who can build an SEC contender around the all-conference pick.

Houston

The defending runners-up had counted on an elite recruiting class to stay in the mix for the national championship. But Houston will now bring back guard Milos Uzan, too, after the senior averaged 11.4 points and 4.3 assists per game in his first year in coach Kelvin Sampson’s system following two years at Oklahoma. Uzan and returning contributors Emanuel Sharp and Joseph Tugler will be the building blocks for what should again be one of the top teams in the country.

Losers

Duke

That Duke was dinged by early draft entrants was totally expected: Cooper Flagg is more than ready to shine in the NBA, sharpshooting guard Kon Knueppel has the toolbox to play major minutes as a rookie and center Khaman Maluach is a hugely promising but unfinished prospect who could develop into a menace on the defensive end. The Blue Devils hoped to replace a chunk of this lost production with transfer Cedric Coward, who began his career on the Division III level, spent two years at Eastern Washington and then played six games last year at Washington State before suffering a shoulder injury. But Coward blew up during draft workouts and should land somewhere in the first round as one of the draft’s fastest-rising prospects.

Arkansas

Knox should take on more responsibility as a scorer and work on developing his overall game before hopping into the draft next spring. He’ll be the centerpiece of a rotation that also will include guard DJ Wagner, two frontcourt transfers in Nick Pringle (South Carolina) and Malique Ewin (Florida State), and two five-star freshmen in Darius Acuff and Meleek Thomas. The bad news for Arkansas is the decision to stay in the draft by 6-foot-6 forward Aduo Thiero, who averaged 15.2 points per game after following Calipari from Kentucky. With Thiero, the Razorbacks might’ve been seen as the team to beat in the SEC.

Prospects had until Wednesday to withdraw their names from the 2025 NBA Draft. After numerous Top 60 players chose to return to college for the next season, one of the deepest draft classes in recent memory has significantly thinned out.

The lottery remains packed with talent at the top, featuring players like Duke’s Cooper Flagg, Rutgers’ Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, Baylor’s VJ Edgecombe and Texas’ Tre Johnson. However, late-first and second-round prospects are withdrawing rapidly.

“There’s an obvious reason for that: Expanding NIL money. While it was a factor in the past two drafts, this is the first one where the money has become huge enough that it radically alters the calculus for all but the top 15-20 picks. For anyone else, it would be extremely unwise to turn down a multi-million-dollar NIL check for the uncertainty of being a second-round pick in the NBA. Thus, the 2025 NBA Draft looks like a completely normal one at the top half of the first round, then has the bottom fall out once we get into the second,” wrote John Hollinger of The Athletic.

For example, Auburn’s Tahaad Pettiford (ranked No. 27 on CBS Sports’ Big Board) will return to school next season to help Bruce Pearl and the Tigers chase a third Final Four appearance.

Pettiford’s decision to withdraw is logical. The 19-year-old was widely viewed as a borderline first-round pick, likely to be selected in the second round had he remained in the draft. Instead, the dynamic playmaker from Jersey City can now enhance his draft stock and solidify his status as one of the top prospects in the 2026 class.

The financial incentives are significant, as Pettiford will reportedly secure an NIL deal worth over $2 million.

Other players who have withdrawn include Alabama’s Labaron Philon (No. 23), San Diego State’s Miles Byrd (No. 52), Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg (No. 43), Florida’s Alex Condon (No. 56), Houston’s Milos Uzan (No. 45), Kansas State’s PJ Haggerty (No. 63) and NC State’s Darrion Williams (No. 44).

“More players are deciding to return to school instead of staying in the NBA draft because of the guaranteed NIL money in college instead of gambling on where they’ll be picked,” wrote Alex Schiffer of Front Office Sports.

The 2025 draft was inevitably weakened by the rise of NIL deals, which continue to draw talent away from the professional ranks. College players can now earn millions before stepping foot on an NBA court and leverage the transfer portal to secure more lucrative opportunities. For many, staying in college is more appealing than grinding as a second-round pick or G League player.

“The prime reason behind a constant rise in the players withdrawing from the draft to return to college is the skyrocketing NIL markets across college basketball,” wrote Brett Siegel of ClutchPoints. “These deals allow them to earn as much as $3 to $4 million per year.”

STILLWATER – Oklahoma State Softball has added versatile utility player Jayden Jones, head coach Kenny Gajewski announced today.
 
Jones joins the Cowgirls with three years of eligibility remaining after playing her freshman season at Virginia Tech.
 
The Gaylord, Mich., native made 19 starts over 26 appearances in her first season of collegiate softball, primarily at second base and as the designated player, and slashed .250/.275/.500. Jones totaled 15 hits on the year – with seven of those going for extra-bases – in 60 at-bats along with 14 runs scored, 12 RBIs and 11 walks.
 
“We’re extremely excited to welcome Jayden to Stillwater,” Gajewski said. “She’s a dynamic infielder that can also play in the outfield if needed, who’s a left-handed bat that can run with a high softball IQ. I think she will exemplify the Cowgirl Way from day one.”
 
Jones tallied five multi-hit performances on the season, including one in her collegiate debut against Fordham, where she recorded a double and an RBI. She notched another multi-hit game against then-No. 7 LSU, where she blasted her first-career home run off LSU’s two-time All-American pitcher, Sydney Berzon.
 
“To say I’m thankful would be an understatement,” Jones said. “I wanted to play for a coaching staff that had my best interest in mind and cared about me as a person more than a player. I wanted to be challenged and coached hard and surrounded by girls with high standards and goals. Oklahoma State checks all of those boxes and I can’t be more excited to officially be a Cowgirl.”
 
With the move to Stillwater, Jones will reunite with her sister, Aubrey, who is set to join the Cowgirls this fall as an incoming freshman. Aubrey was the 2024 Michigan Gatorade Player of the Year and led the country in home runs as a junior at Gaylord High School with 26 long balls.
 
“It’s a dream come true being able to play with Aubrey again,” Jones said. “I didn’t know if we’d ever have the chance to be in the same dugout again or on the same field. I never wanted our time playing together to end so I’m grateful God allowed it to work out at the right time.”
 
The Jones’ will become the second set of sisters to play together at the same time in program history, joining the Sodanos – Linda and Sharon – who played together from 1990-91.
 
“I’m excited to add another talented infielder from the Jones family to our program,” Gajewski said. “We recruited Jayden hard out of high school, so we’re very familiar with who she is and what she’s capable of and we can’t wait to see her and Aubrey in the Orange and Black.”
 
In high school, Jones was a two-time state champion at Gaylord High School and was named 2024 Michigan Miss Softball by the Michigan High School Coaches Association. She was ranked as the No. 4 middle infielder nationally and No. 13 overall by Legacy and Legends Softball and No. 6 by Extra Innings Softball.
 
For season-long coverage of Oklahoma State Softball, visit okstate.com and follow @cowgirlSB on X and @osusoftball on Instagram.
 

The amount of “illegal activity” involving NIL money in college football is not a secret so the latest revelation from Kirby Smart does actually not come as a surprise but it does raise one big question. How are these “unaffiliated” collectives enforcing their back-end financial recuperation?

I am curious to know if there is a contractual agreement or if it is based entirely on the honor system.

Smart is set to begin his 10th season as the college football coach at Georgia in just a few months. Needless to say, the entire landscape of the sport looks completely different today than it did a decade ago. The transfer portal is one thing. Name, Image and Likeness is another.

Lets focus on the latter. As I already said, it is not a secret that D-I programs — through their collectives — are using NIL money as a direct inducement for a high schooler’s commitment. Although that is considered to be an illegal practice by rule, there is no one to enforce it because the NCAA is incompetent. The amount of loopholes and lack of regulation involved with NIL also makes it very hard to punish without the threat of a lawsuit. We are living in a lawless era of collegiate athletics.

Collectives are doing whatever they can to get a high school recruit to commit. According to Smart, that includes a lucrative retainer. He revealed what he knows is happening to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports.

Collectives are striking deals with high school recruits to keep and gain their commitments – paying them as much as $20,000 a month in this unregulated market. If they de-commit, they are being asked to return the compensation, he says.

— Kirby Smart

First and foremost, if Kirby Smart is saying this, I would find it hard to believe that Georgia’s NIL collective is not doing the same thing. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Secondly, I am very intrigued by the last part of his not-so-classified admission. How are these collectives getting their money back if a recruit decommits? Are they signing these high school kids to a legally-binding contract? Are they sending the goon squad after them if they don’t pay it back?

I can’t imagine a world where there is not a contractual obligation. And yet, it is technically illegal to lure a recruit to a specific school with money. So if the contracts do exist, they are directly against the rules. If the contracts don’t exist, I cannot see why a recruit would return the money paid to them. What are the collectives going to do about it? A report to what is left of the NCAA might cause more harm than good.

According to Smart, some collectives (none in the SEC, of course) are compensating high school players upward of $20,000 per month to remain committed and then eventually sign with their school.

“Teams that are usually good at recruiting right now are doing it,” Smart said. “Kids are getting money but if you decommit you owe that money back. These are high school kids getting money from an entity not affiliated with the university but is a collective of the university.”

How one wants to define affiliated is up to them but it’s pretty well-known that coaches often talk to collectives to determine which players to target with their money and what will be needed to land their commitment.

Smart has taken a different approach than many other coaches who clearly have a pay-for-play model when it comes to recruiting. He made his comments just about two weeks after five-star offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell chose Miami over the Bulldogs.

Cantwell talked highly about his relationship with Miami coach Mario Cristobal and position coach Alex Mirabal and how that was the deciding factor. But in the background was super agent Drew Rosenhaus working a reported $2 million-per-year NIL deal for the Nixa, Mo., standout.

Georgia had to fight tooth and dollar until the end to get the recommitment of five-star quarterback Jared Curtis from Nashville (Tenn.) Christian. UGA beat out Oregon, which has all the Nike money to land players and hasn’t been shy about it in the past.

Whether right or wrong, Smart’s approach has not been to blow the Georgia money stack on one superstar player but to spread his bets around to multiple players. There has also been a hesitancy to promise massive money upfront but not shy away from paying more once production has been shown in the early years in Athens.

After reading Smart’s comments, lawyer Darren Heitner, who deals with NIL issues, took to social media and said: “The only reason Kirby Smart is complaining about high school players receiving compensation is that Georgia is losing out on players. You don’t hear criticism from the schools winning the recruiting wars and the athletes who are benefiting in the process.”

That has not been necessarily true in Georgia’s case although there have been some recruiting battles that even people inside the building were uncertain of how they’d go down the stretch because opponents have come in with big bags late. Cantwell was one. Georgia wasn’t certain on Curtis until right before decision time.

Like Smart said on a different topic this week, there’s no complaining from the yacht. The Bulldogs are hardly struggling.

Georgia has the No. 10 recruiting class right now in the 2026 class. In the last four recruiting cycles, the Dawgs have finishes of No. 1, two No. 2s and a No. 3 class. In 2021 and 2022, Georgia won back-to-back national championships for the first time in a decade since Alabama did it in 2011-12.

When then-Alabama coach Nick Saban called out then-Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher for buying players in the Aggies’ 2022 class that finished atop the Rivals team rankings one spot ahead of the Crimson Tide, it set off a firestorm of back-and-forth bashing and ridicule. Fisher went off on Saban, who finally dialed it back but the message was sent.

In only those few short years, the NIL landscape has transformed college football recruiting in many ways. What was once illegal is now perfectly fine.

Change is most likely coming with the House settlement and revenue sharing in many ways. One reason Saban left the game was because of NIL, no doubt, as players came into his office asking what he was going to give them. Enough was enough.

Smart might not be at the end of his rope just yet but there are certainly frustrations. Right or wrong, he’s going to do things his way and whether he lands the next Cantwell or not, we’ll see if the NIL tide causes waves too big to handle.

An NBA draft decision had to be made on Wednesday by 11:59 p.m. for college basketball players looking to retain their remaining eligibility, and this year it was tougher than ever before.

The deadline to withdraw from the 2025 NBA draft and play college basketball this season came and went, and more of the still-nascent effects from all the money being introduced into the environment are beginning to come into focus. There were still surprising calls made to stay in the NBA draft (or stay in school for another year), and now they came with the additional pressure of millions of dollars in potential name, image and likeness compensation and the expected implementation of revenue sharing looming over everything.

From all this, notable developments and trends appear to be emerging. College leagues and teams brought back or lost potential star players. The NBA, meanwhile, now knows exactly what players are available to be taken in next month’s draft class, and what might be looming in years to come with all the change occurring in college basketball.

There’s a lot to sort through, with the NBA draft looming as another flash point during a landscape-shifting offseason in college basketball. Here’s a breakdown of all the winners and losers coming out of the college withdrawal deadline for the 2025 NBA draft:

OPINION: No one will stop the Thunder from winning NBA championship

Winners: SEC basketball

The SEC is coming off a season in which it got a record 14 teams into the NCAA Tournament and produced the national champion (Florida), and the league is going to be loaded again after some of the decisions made over the past week. The Gators will be threats to repeat after adding Arkansas transfer Boogie Fland and bringing back center Alex Condon from the draft pool. 

Auburn also got guard Tahaad Pettiford back in the fold after he impressed NBA scouts and Kentucky got late word that guard Otega Oweh would be returning to school. Alabama then pulled off a last-minute surprise Wednesday night when guard Labaron Philon elected to return to college for another year despite being a potential first-round pick. 

Loser: Arkansas

Arkansas is about the only SEC team that can complain about how this all went down. John Calipari’s roster took a hit over the past few weeks. Boogie Fland transferred to SEC rival Florida and then Adou Thiero elected to stay in the draft. Calipari’s streak of first-round picks could be in jeopardy of coming to an end, though Thiero’s decision suggests he could go among the first 30 picks. Calipari has produced a player selected in the first round during every NBA draft since Derrick Rose in 2008. Arkansas did get Karter Knox back after he tested the draft waters and should still be an SEC title contender, but the loss of Thiero and Fland are blows to the Razorbacks’ chances in Calipari’s second season.

Winners: Cedric Coward and Yanic Konan Niederhauser

Coward played just six games at Washington State this past season after transferring from Eastern Washington and is still coming back from a shoulder injury. The 6-foot-6 wing transferred to Duke this offseason, only to improve his draft stock so much after an impressive showing in front of NBA scouts that the promise of being a first-round pick was too good to pass up.

Penn State’s Yanic Konan Niederhauser, meanwhile, turned down the chance to be the best player on a Big Ten team to stay in the draft after an impressive showing at the G League Elite Camp led to an invite to the NBA draft combine earlier this month. The 7-foot center from Switzerland began his college career at Northern Illinois before transferring to Penn State and averaging 12.9 points and 6.3 rebounds during his lone season in Happy Valley. He and Coward will both be interesting prospects to monitor given their unorthodox rise up draft boards.

Loser: NBA rookie contracts

The allure of being picked in the NBA draft just isn’t the same in 2025, not when colleges are doling out millions in NIL packages to prospects and revenue sharing is expected to go into effect this fall. Players such as Yaxel Landeborg (Michigan), Darrion Williams (North Carolina State) and PJ Haggerty (Kansas State) all eschewed the NBA for the transfer portal, while potential picks like Tahaad Pettiford (Auburn), guard Milos Uzan (Houston) and Miles Byrd (San Diego State) chose to return to their previous destination with the guaranteed money waiting for them in college. The NBA’s G League rosters will be most affected by this change.

Winners: International prospects

It’s a good time to be an international basketball prospect. More are coming to the United States to play college basketball because of the money associated with NIL deals. And more are likely to be selected in this year’s NBA draft, especially in the second round when the pool of prospects thinned out by the number of veteran college players who decided to stay in college with NIL compensation and revenue sharing set to begin this season. They also have until June 15 to withdraw from the NBA draft and can still go the college route.

Losers: College teams still looking for a transfer portal star

College teams still in search of an impact player for their roster are going to have to look a little harder after this week. St. John’s guard R.J. Luis and Florida State wing Jamir Watkins, considered the two best remaining uncommitted transfer portal options, both elected to stay in the NBA draft late Wednesday night. It means, of the top 50 players on the On3.com transfer portal rankings, just two players are still available.