Senior Class: 2026 Marks Most Senior First-Round Draft Choices Since 2011
Two years ago, Purdue's Zach Edey (9th overall choice) joined Oklahoma's Buddy Hield (6th in 2016) and Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky (9th in 2015) as the only single-digit draftees among seniors in the last 20 years. The last college senior using all four years of eligibility to be the first overall pick in the NBA draft was Cincinnati center Kenyon Martin Sr. in 2000. Twenty years later, exemplifying how times changed, his son with the same name was one of a dozen NBA draftees (including foreigners) who never attended a four-year American university.
This year marked the most senior first-round picks (six) since Marquette's Jimmy Butler was the final pick and seventh senior in opening round in 2011. Kentucky - in the final year prior to lottery picks - contributed two seniors among the top six selections in 1984 (Sam Bowie and Melvin Turpin). Insofar as the second round is virtually meaningless, following is a look at seniors selected in the first round in last 15 years:
| Year | # of 1st-Round Seniors Picked | Summary of Senior Selections in NBA Draft Opening Round Last 15 Years |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | four | North Carolina's Tyler Zeller (17th pick overall), St. Bonaventure's Andrew Nicholson (19th), Duke's Miles Plumlee (26th) and Vanderbilt's Festus Ezell (30th) |
| 2013 | three | Lehigh's CJ McCollum (10th), Duke's Mason Plumlee (22nd) and Arizona's Solomon Hill (23rd) |
| 2014 | five | Creighton's Doug McDermott (11th), Michigan State's Adreian Payne (15th), Connecticut's Shabazz Napier (24th), Washington's C.J. Wilcox (28th) and Stanford's Josh Huestis (29th) |
| 2015 | four | Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky (9th), Notre Dame's Jerian Grant (19th), Utah's Delon Wright (20th) and Wyoming's Larry Nance Jr. (27th) |
| 2016 | five | Oklahoma's Buddy Hield (6th), Baylor's Taurean Prince (12th), Michigan State's Denzel Valentine (14th), Michigan's Caris LeVert (20th) and North Carolina's Brice Johnson (25th) |
| 2017 | two | Colorado's Derrick White (29th) and Villanova's Josh Hart (30th) |
| 2018 | two | Duke's Grayson Allen (21st) and Boise State's Chandler Hutchison (22nd) |
| 2019 | three | North Carolina's Cameron Johnson (11th), Washington's Matisse Thybulle (20th) and Belmont's Dylan Windler (26th) |
| 2020 | three | Oregon's Payton Pritchard (26th), Kansas' Udoka Azubike (27th) and Texas Christian's Desmond Bane (30th) |
| 2021 | two | Oregon's Chris Duarte (13th) and Gonzaga's Corey Kispert (15th) |
| 2022 | one | Kansas' Ochai Agbaji (14th) |
| 2023 | four | UCLA's Jaime Jaquez Jr. (18th), Houston's Marcus Sasser (25th), Belmont's Ben Sheppard (26th) and Missouri's Kobe Brown (30th) |
| 2024 | six | Purdue's Zach Edey (9th), Tennessee's Dalton Knecht (17th), Colorado's Tristan da Silva (18th), Weber State's Dillon Jones (26th), Illinois' Terrence Shannon Jr. (27th) and Creighton's Baylor Scheierman (30th) |
| 2025 | three | Washington's Cedric Coward (11th), Florida's Walter Clayton Jr. (18th) and Colorado State's Nique Clifford (24th) |
| 2026 | six | Michigan's Yaxel Lendeborg (11th), Iowa's Bennett Stirtz (16th), St. John's Zuby Ejiofor (23rd), Connecticut's Tarris Reed Jr. (26th), Iowa State's Joshua Jefferson (28th) and Connecticut's Alex Karaban (29th) |