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As the early entry deadline has come and passed, a couple of fellow Big East teams have gotten good news. First Georgetown's D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera flirted with the NBA draft before deciding to come back to school for another season. Then Providence PG Kris Dunn - himself the subject of plenty of speculation regarding his draft status - announced that he was also returning to his undergraduate studies.
While these players were making the decision based on different criteria - the concern around DSR was that he has reached his peak appeal to NBA teams and another year of college wouldn't change that, while Kris Dunn is a classic case of an athletic and large point guard having the chance to be drafted on potential - the fact remains that each had a solid case for leaving.
One of the benefits of being Xavier down through the years has been that most players aren't jumping early. For every Derrick Brown, Jordan Crawford, or Semaj Christon, there's a laundry list of Justin Doellman/Jason Love/Dee Davis et c. four-year players. Anyway, this all got me thinking on who might be the next Musketeer to try his fortunes with early entry to professional basketball.
Obviously it's not going to be Remy or Big Game James. They're both coming back this year and will have exhausted their eligibility by the time the next opportunity to declare for the draft rolls around. There are also other reasons why this is obvious.
Dropping down a class, the obvious candidate here is Jalen Reynolds. The case for Reynolds leaving after his junior season is basically as follows: he's freaky athletic, he's performed well on big stages, and - owing to his year at prep school and his year of ineligibility - he's going to be 23 by the time his junior season ends. Players have attempted to launch careers from less reasonable platforms.
A productive season in the Big East could see Reynolds having legitimate draft stock a year from today. Of course, being (listed at) 6'10" and having a great vertical does not in and of itself an NBA career make; a little more refinement to his game would probably be necessary before people start trying to entice Jalen to make the jump.
Trevon Bluiett led Xavier in scoring for much of the year before seeming to run into the freshman wall late; could he be a candidate to leave before his four years are up? He still averaged 11 PPG as a freshman, and it's not too hard to look at his line and see where some more points could come from. I don't think anyone would find it unreasonable to hope for 14-15 PPG from him next year, and after that who would rule out 18 or 19 PPG as a junior? It's not impossible or even implausible that that happens, and surely 19 PPG in the Big East would be worth at least a look.
Most people (and I'll grant this is ridiculously early to assess something like this) seem to think Bluiett is on his way to a very productive four-year career at X. The knock on his potential to go early is that he is kind of a tweener at the next level. He's not quick enough to guard a two, but it's not clear that he's big enough to guard a three. The next couple of years could bring about just about anything though, and he's proven he can put the biscuit in the basket.
Below that class is incoming freshman Kaiser Gates and newly-eligible redshirts Makinde London and Edmond Sumner. It's hard to say what might become of any of these guys once they get on a college floor, but I've been told that Ed Sumner has one-and-done potential. Sumner is a 6'5" point guard with a 41" vertical leap; that alone is enough to at least make you take notice. Beyond that notice though, it's worth noting he has only slightly more NCAA D1 points than I do right now.
What do you think? Is one of these guys Xavier's next player to leave early for the draft, or is someone else that I've overlooked? Or is it more likely that the next player to make that jump isn't even on the roster right now?