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Withdrawal Deadline Looms For NCAA Early Entrants

May 28th, 2025 at 11:52am CST by Luke Adams

The deadline for players who declared for the 2025 NBA draft as early entrants to withdraw their names from the pool is June 15 at 4:00 pm Central time.

A player who withdraws from the 2025 draft by that deadline would be eligible to be drafted in a future season — that could happen as early as 2026 if the player declares again as an early entrant or is automatically draft-eligible next year, or he could become draft-eligible in 2027 or beyond.

However, the NCAA sets its own withdrawal deadline each year. While the NBA’s deadline comes 10 days before the start of the draft, the NCAA’s deadline occurs just 10 days after the combine ends. This year, the NCAA’s withdrawal deadline is May 28 (today) at 10:59 pm CT.

A college player who is testing the draft waters could technically put off his decision for another two-and-a-half weeks, but if he withdraws from the draft pool on June 15, he would lose the ability to return to an NCAA program for the 2025/26 season. That route would only make sense for a player who had lined up a non-college opportunity, such as playing in a professional league overseas.

In other words, nearly all of the college players who declared for this year’s draft as early entrants will finalize their decisions on whether to return to school or go pro by the end of the day on Wednesday. As our tracker shows, there are still a number of prospects whose intentions haven’t been confirmed, so we’ll be keeping tabs on any updates that come in over the next 11 hours or so.

Here are a few of the latest updates:

Forward Toibu Lawal is removing his name from the 2025 NBA draft pool and will return to Virginia Tech for his senior year, a source tells Jeff Goodman of The Field of 68 (Twitter link). After transferring from VCU to Virginia Tech for the 2024/25 season, Lawal was a full-time starter, averaging 12.4 points and 7.0 rebounds per game with a .559/.371/.641 shooting line in 30 contests.
Brandon Walker is pulling out of the draft, he tells Jon Chepkevich of DraftExpress (Twitter link). Walker, who has spent the past two seasons playing for Montana State, is still in the transfer portal and plans to announce a commitment to a “high-major program” soon, Chepkevich notes. The 6’7″ forward put up 14.7 PPG and 4.9 RPG with a .528/.386/.545 shooting line as a junior last season.
After withdrawing from the transfer portal earlier this spring, wing Raysean Seamster has now withdrawn from the draft as well and will return to UT Arlington for his senior season, Chepkevich reports (via Twitter). Seamster was a starter for the Mavericks in 2024/25, averaging 11.4 PPG and 4.9 RPG in 30 games (25.7 MPG).

NBA Announces Initial Early Entrant List For 2025 Draft

April 29th, 2025 at 10:40am CST by Luke Adams

The NBA has officially released the initial list of early entrants for the 2025 NBA draft, announcing in a press release (Twitter link) that 106 players have filed as early entry candidates. Of those prospects, 73 are from colleges, 30 had been playing for teams internationally, and three were playing non-college ball stateside (in the G League).

While that early entrant total exceeds the number of players who will be selected in this year’s draft (59), it’s down significantly from the figures we’ve seen in recent years. A record 353 early entrants initially declared for the draft in 2021, but that number dropped to 283 in 2022, 242 in 2023, and 201 a year ago.

The NCAA’s NIL policy, which allows college athletes to be paid based on their name, image, and likeness, has been a major factor in that downward trend — fewer prospects feel the need to go pro as soon as possible when they’re earning big money at the college level.

The huge dip this year can also be attributed in large part to the fact that most college seniors are now automatically draft-eligible. In recent years, most fourth-year seniors faced an “early entrant” decision because they were granted an extra year of NCAA eligibility due to COVID-19 and didn’t have the 2020/21 season count toward their typical limit.

This year’s total of 106 early entrants figures to decline significantly by May 28 and again by June 15, the two deadlines for players to withdraw their names from the draft pool. The leftover early entrants will join the college seniors with no remaining eligibility and other automatically eligible players in this year’s draft pool.

Our tracker of early entrants for the 2025 draft is fully up to date and can be found right here.

Here are the changes we made to our tracker today:

Newly added players

College players:

These players either didn’t publicly announce that they were entering the draft or we simply missed it when they did.

Chad Baker-Mazara, G/F, Auburn (senior)
Quincy Ballard, C, Wichita State (senior)
Jaden Bradley, G, Arizona (junior)
Tayton Conerway, G, Troy (senior)
Melvin Council Jr., G, St. Bonaventure (senior)
Jerry Deng, F, Florida State (sophomore)
Isaiah Evans, G/F, Duke (freshman)
Dominick Harris, G, UCLA (senior)
Chris Howell, G, UC San Diego (junior)
Camron McDowell, G, Northwestern Oklahoma State (junior)
Devin McGlockton, F, Vanderbilt (junior)
Kebba Njie, F, Notre Dame (junior)
AK Okereke, F, Cornell (junior)
Omar Rowe, G, Morehouse (senior)
Bruce Thornton, G, Ohio State (junior)
Brandon Walker, F, Montana State (junior)
Money Williams, G, Montana (sophomore)

International players:

These players weren’t previously mentioned on our list of international early entrants. The country listed here indicates where they last played, not necessarily where they were born.

Alec Anigbata, F, Germany (born 2004)
Asim Djulovic, G/F, Serbia (born 2005)
Lazar Gacic, C, Serbia (born 2005)
Ben Henshall, G/F, Australia (born 2004)
Muodubem Muoneke, G, Spain (born 2003)
Eli Ndiaye, C, Spain (born 2004)
Zaion Nebot, G, France (born 2004)
David Torresani, G, Italy (born 2005)
Rocco Zikarsky, C, Australia (born 2006)

Players removed

Despite reports or announcements that the players below would declare for the draft, they didn’t show up on the NBA’s official list.

That could mean a number of things — they may have decided against entering the draft; they may have entered the draft, then withdrawn; they may have had no NCAA eligibility remaining, making them automatically draft-eligible; they may have incorrectly filed their paperwork; or the NBA may have accidentally omitted some names.

Because they’re absent from the NBA’s official list, we’ve removed the following names from our own early entrant list.

Note: Some of these players may also be transferring to new schools.

Abdi Bashir, G, Monmouth (sophomore)
Terrence Brown, G, FDU (sophomore)
Christian Coleman, F, UAB (senior)
Jason Edwards, G, Vanderbilt (junior)
Keyshawn Hall, G/F, UCF (junior)
Nate Johnson, G, Akron (junior)
Duncan Powell, F, Georgia Tech (junior)
Nick Pringle, F, South Carolina
Oziyah Sellers, G, Stanford (junior)
Daniel Skillings, G/F, Cincinnati (junior)
Marquel Sutton, F, Omaha (senior)
Lamar Wilkerson, G, Sam Houston State (senior)
Kam Williams, G/F, Tulane (freshman)
Shelton Williams-Dryden, F, West Georgia (junior)

According to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony (Twitter link), two-time national champion Alex Karaban of UConn also initially filed paperwork to test the draft waters, but withdrew from the pool before the NBA put out today’s early entrant list. He’ll return to the Huskies for his senior season.