The Kansas Jayhawks were down 15 at the half against the North Carolina Tar Heels on Monday night. It felt like the Tar Heels’ season of destiny, going from 8-seed to ending rival Mike Krzyzewski’s incredible career in the Final Four, was going to end in a title.
Cinderella finally saw the clock strike midnight as Bill Self’s Kansas team methodically broke the lead down. The final plays came down to David McCormack’s pair of hook shots on deep post-ups to give the Jayhawks a three-point lead.
North Carolina ran out of magic, missing two 3-pointers in the final minutes as the team tried to get a grip back on the game and the lead.
It was a wildly entertaining end to a wildly entertaining tournament. And Kansas, quietly going through the season all year, quietly went through the NCAA Tournament and picked up their first title since 2008.
Now the attention in the basketball world turns to the upcoming NBA Playoffs. The basketball never stops.
With the NCAA Tournament now over, the NBA Draft enters a new phase as teams evaluate the complete seasons and weigh how much these pressure games matter in the evaluation.
For the college players, their focus will now turn to the upcoming NBA Draft as they prepare for their offseason.
The Orlando Magic already seem focused on that part. The team is in a sink to the bottom to secure not just the top odds but the worst record in the league. Or at least it feels that way. The Magic’s future will be on the back of some ping pong balls.
And so the end of the college basketball season allows everyone to close the book on the draft prospects. The next time everyone focuses on these players — the players who may well shape this franchise’s future — will be at the NBA Draft Combine in mid-May.
The NCAA Tournament is the most visible moment for all of the prospects entering the NBA Draft. More eyes are on them for those games as NBA fans take a break for the pageantry of the tournament. It is always a bad idea to put too much stock into these games.
But they still reveal something. After all, everyone wants to see how these players perform in high-pressure situations. And everyone likes players who win.
They may be moving up only a spot with a good performance or down a spot with a bad one on various big boards. But that could be the difference when it is your turn to pick.
The Magic are obviously focused a lot on the top of the board. But there are plenty of players who showed out at the NCAA Tournament. And plenty of players who had more questions raised about them.
With Kansas finishing off cutting down the nets. Let’s take a look at three players who rose and three players who left some questions as the NCAA Tournament closes.
2022 NBA Draft: 3 Rising and 3 Falling after the NCAA Tournament
Rising: Paolo Banchero, Duke
Heading into the NCAA Tournament, the race to be the top pick seemed to be a two-man race.
Jabari Smith of Auburn seemed like the safer pick. A sweet-shooting forward with a more complete offensive game, Parker seems like he would fit in pretty quickly and provide the skills the NBA needs.
Chet Holmgren is the unicorn in the draft. The guy who seems like a generational talent but who has questions about whether he can hold up in the NBA thanks to his thin frame and body.
At the top of the draft, you are picking nits and figuring out what you like.
Paolo Banchero spent a good part of the season in that conversation but seemed to fall off for whatever reason. It is not really clear why everyone went out on him — maybe Duke’s difficult finish to the season or his relatively poor 3-point shooting.
No player probably used the stage of the NCAA Tournament better than Banchero. Banchero should absolutely be in the conversation to be the top pick in the Draft.
In leading Duke to the Final Four, Banchero averaged 18.8 points per game, 7.6 rebounds per game and 3.4 assists per game. He made 50.0-percent of his shots (13.6 field goal attempts per game) and made 52.6-percent of his 3-pointers.
He scored 22 points in the Sweet 16 win over Texas Tech and 20 points in the Final Four loss to North Carolina. Duke’s inability to get Banchero the ball late in that game might be why Duke’s archrival ended up in the title game.
If the top player in the draft is supposed to be the guy teams dump the ball to and go get a basket, there is no one better at that than Banchero. He showed throughout the tournament he could be a go-to option and work both facing up and in the post. Banchero is as complete an offensive player as there is in this class.
Whatever caused Banchero to drop out of the top pick conversation, this tournament run should stop that conversation.
2022 NBA Draft: 3 Rising and 3 Falling after the NCAA Tournament
Rising: Bennedict Mathurin, Arizona
Looking for the performance of the NCAA Tournament? The one individual performance where one guy just took over the game and made things happen for his team to survive and advance? The game everyone was transfixed by in the early rounds of the tournament?
That would come from top-seeded Arizona’s overtime thriller against TCU in the second round of the tournament. And that would be the performance Bennedict Mathurin gave in helping Arizona survive.
He scored 30 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out four assists in total in the game. With Arizona on the ropes, he stepped up bigger in the clutch, scoring the game-tying 3-pointer and continuing that through overtime to seal the game.
Mathurin has been an interesting player throughout the season. He projects as something of a 3-and-D wing. He has good size and length to be a great defender. His shooting is impressive with good percentages in both his freshman and sophomore seasons.
But it is these scoring bursts like the one he had against TCU that catches everyone’s eyes. He averaged 17.7 points per game this year. He had another 30-point game against Illinois too.
In three NCAA Tournament games, Mathurin averaged 21.0 points per game and 5.7 rebounds per game. He had some poor shooting games — including a 4-for-14 performance in their loss to Houston — and so there are still some questions of offensive consistency.
But there was more good than bad in the tournament and all season. That should put him on people’s radars a whole lot more. This was a good tournament for Mathurin as he climbs firmly into the top-10.
2022 NBA Draft: 3 Rising and 3 Falling after the NCAA Tournament
Rising: Ochai Agbaji, Kansas
Someone has to win the national championship. And someone is going to get put in the spotlight for it.
Ochai Agbaji is viewed in this draft as the sure pick. That is what happens when you are a senior among underclassmen. Everyone thinks you are pretty well defined and figured out.
Agbaji may not become a star player in the NBA, but he will be as solid as he was for Kansas. He can hit shots from the outside and make good decisions on how to attack. He will slot in wherever he ends up and contribute.
But maybe Agbaji can do a whole lot more.
Agbaji scored just 12 points on 4-for-9 shooting in the national championship game against North Carolina. It was not a standout performance on the box score. But he was still impactful in helping quiet North Carolina’s guards in the second half.
Agbaji was named the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player for averaging 13.7 points per game and shooting 46.2-percent from the floor. His defense helped too as the Jayhawks waltzed to the national title game.
In his best game, he scored 21 points and hit six 3-pointers in the Jayhawks’ Final Four victory over Villanova. That showed off his potential as a shooter.
Agbaji averaged 18.9 points per game and made 41.0-percent of his 3-pointers. That is a great place to start. The fact he is a senior is likely going to depress his draft stock.
But he is the one exiting the tournament with a ring. He is the one that has shown the league he can fit in with a winning team, even when he is their leading scorer. He is the one with bragging rights.
That is not something anyone will take away from him.
2022 NBA Draft: 3 Rising and 3 Falling after the NCAA Tournament
Falling: Chet Holmgren, Gonzaga
This is not an NBA Draft class that has a ton of generational talent. This is not a class the league has been waiting for.
But there is one player who has the potential to be a truly unique player and someone who is going to be at the center of every debate in this draft.
At this point, you either believe in Chet Holmgren or you do not. You either see how he could be a generational talent with his ball-handling and shooting at 7-feet tall or you think he is too rail-thin at 195 pounds to take the pounding that will come in the NBA.
Everyone is going to see what they want to see in Holmgren. Just be prepared for heated debates in the lead-up to the draft on what Holmgren will be able to do when he hits the league.
Those who like Holmgren saw what they wanted to see in Gonzaga’s NCAA Tournament run.
He averaged 13.0 points, 13.3 rebounds and 4.3 blocks per game while shooting 58.6-percent from the floor in three games. Holmgren was a presence in the paint, able to block shots and grab rebounds. His scoring was fine, even if he struggled from deep.
Those who dislike Holmgren also saw why they dislike him during the tournament too.
Holmgren was pushed off the block a ton and struggled against physical defenses. Despite the block numbers, teams were able to play him off the floor by getting him into foul trouble. Maybe that is because college officiating is just bad, but Holmgren’s impact was blunted by his lack of physicality at times.
And his 3-point shooting, part of what will separate him from his peers and keep him in the league as he tries to add some strength in NBA weight training programs, did not deliver for the Bulldogs. It quieted his offense to just putbacks. Then again, Gonzaga’s guards were not quite impactful this year.
Holmgren will very much be in the eye of the beholder. But those questions are only going to get louder. Holmgren is going to land somewhere. And the team that gets him will need a big (like say, Wendell Carter) to be the physical backstop around him. They will need some patience to develop him.
The issue should not be whether Holmgren can play. But the question that still needs to be answered is how he will hold up in the long run. The tournament only continued to raise those questions.
2022 NBA Draft: 3 Rising and 3 Falling after the NCAA Tournament
Falling: Jaden Ivey, Purdue
This NBA Draft is full of forwards at the very top. It is full of big players who can work off the dribble and cause mismatch problems. It is short on guards and so the best guard in the draft should stand out in some way.
To be sure, Jaden Ivey does stand out — he finished his sophomore season averaging 17.3 points per game on a 53.3-percent effective field goal percentage. He is an explosive scorer who can get to the basket and finish. He is being dubbed as a poor man’s Ja Morant (although he has similar explosiveness, he is not nearly the playmaker or overall scorer as Morant was at Murray State).
In the first tier of prospects without any guards, Ivey has the chance to stand out just by being different. And guard play is still vital to any team’s success, even with the advent of playmaking bigs.
So it is fair to say that Ivey’s NCAA Tournament left something of a bad taste, raising questions about what he can be if his scoring does not translate to the league.
Ivey averaged 16.3 points per game, 5.0 rebounds per game and 2.0 assists per game with a 43.8-percent field goal percentage. His play got worse deeper in the tournament though — scoring 22 in the opening game against Yale, 18 against Texas, and then just nine points against St. Peter’s.
This should not be a knock against the 15-seed St. Peter’s, who did a good job defending Purdue as a whole and turning Purdue into a one-dimensional offense. But Ivey was at his worst in the biggest game of the year for his team. He scored just nine points on 4-for-12 shooting, missing five of his six 3-pointers.
That game was begging for Ivey to take over. And Purdue, as a whole, just did not seem engaged or playing with urgency to win until late. Ivey hit a couple of shots late when the Boilermakers were desperate to come back. But it was too late.
The question with Ivey will be what can he do if he is not on the ball or if he is not the lead scorer. Those questions only got louder with his tournament performance.
This was a game Ivey should have made his statement. He did not make that case during the tournament.
2022 NBA Draft: 3 Rising and 3 Falling after the NCAA Tournament
Falling: AJ Griffin, Duke
It was a fun story, if not a panicked one, following the Orlando Magic’s loss to the Toronto Raptors on Friday.
Raptors assistant coach (and former Magic assistant coach) Adrian Griffin could not get a flight out of Orlando to New Orleans for Saturday’s Final Four game. Storms hit the Orlando area hard Saturday, grounding planes at Orlando International Airport.
Griffin did the only thing a sane father would do. He rented a car and drove through the night from Orlando to New Orleans to see his son, AJ Griffin, play in the Final Four.
Duke put up a good fight and showed why the team has plenty of talent. But his son AJ Griffin has always had a hard time standing out. That is partly because his game is about doing everything, filling in gaps for his team.
Duke obviously needed just a bit more to get over the hump and get to the national title game.
Griffin scored only six points on 1-for-7 shooting, missing all four of his 3-pointers in the loss to North Carolina on Saturday. He had a wild up-and-down showing in the Tournament, topping off at 18 points on 7-for-9 shooting against Arkansas in the Elite Eight.
Griffin was not a scoring machine by any means, averaging only 10.4 points per game. His role was to be a 3-and-D player, draining 3-pointers and defending the best player on the other team. Every team needs that.
But those hoping to use a top-10 pick on the Duke forward and see if they could coax more out of him might end up disappointed. In the NCAA Tournament, Duke needed consistency from this supporting player and he did not stand out.
Again, that just might be how Griffin prefers to play.