The 2024-25 men’s college basketball season is underway and many of the top prospects are showcasing their skills and utilizing their platforms to state their cases ahead of the 2025 NBA draft.
While the draft is seven months away, we’ve had our eyes on these players for quite some time. From Duke’s Cooper Flagg to Baylor’s VJ Edgecombe to the Rutgers freshman duo of Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper, there’s a lot to like and write about this deep and talented draft class.
Flagg will make his prime-time debut Tuesday when the Blue Devils take on Kentucky in the Champions Classic (9 p.m. ET, ESPN), making it one of the season’s top nonconference games to watch. It also happens to be the first marquee game for Wildcats coach Mark Pope, who stepped in to replace John Calipari (who moved over to Arkansas).
With the NBA roughly 10 games into its season, ESPN draft experts Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo lean on their own scouting and exclusive intel from league executives to inform and guide their latest mock draft, slotting prospects to teams. The first-round order was generated by ESPN’s BPI forecast, which predicts how well all 30 teams will perform during the rest of the season. The order, as updated through the morning of Nov. 11, reflects picks owed and owned via trades.
More NBA draft coverage:
10 college teams with most NBA-level talent?
Predictions: Early chances at No. 1
Top 100 rankings of the 2025 prospects | More
