Dan Gavitt, the NCAA vice president of men’s basketball championships, said in a story published on the NCAA’s website that the new NBA Draft early entry deadline was a success.
“There is no question that some underclassmen benefitted from the process,” Gavitt said. “Both some that decided to stay in the draft and some who came back – who clearly, in my mind, would not have come back had they had to declare in April and that was the last opportunity they had.”
“The timing was good because with the start of the oversight committee in the governance process, it had kind of a natural progression,” he added. “That was one of the first things that the Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee worked on. They’re the ones who sponsored the legislation through the Council and thus got the membership to vote on it.”
Prior to this season, the deadline for NCAA athletes to withdraw from the draft was little more than a week after the national title game. They could announce their intentions to enter the NBA Draft was the NBA’s deadline to declare, usually falling at the end of April. There was no testing the waters process.
This season, NCAA athletes were given until 10 days after the end of the NBA combine to withdraw from the draft, allowing them to attend the combine (or find out they were not invited to the combine), interview with front office types and get feedback directly from the NBA.
Of the 117 college players that declared, 58 opted to return to school.