Ranking the schools with the most NBA Draft first-round picks since 1989

On3 imageby:Alex Weber06/24/22
On3 image
Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Getty Images

With the 2022 NBA Draft occurring on Thursday, CBS Sports looked back at the last 34 years worth of drafts to see which college programs have had the most players selected in the first round. The results were all chalk. The exact programs you would expect were the ones to produce the most top picks. In order, here was the ranking of the teams and the total number of first-round picks they’ve produced since 1989:

(Per CBS Sports)

  1. Kentucky — 45
  2. Duke — 44
  3. North Carolina — 35
  4. Kansas — 27

All blue blood programs on this list. Not much of a surprise. These four are consistently atop the recruiting rankings and routinely populate the top 10 of the AP Top 25 throughout the year. Plus, each program has won a national title in the last decade. So really, the best programs are putting the most players in the first round of the NBA Draft, and are so successful because of all these great talents.

In the 2022 draft that occurred on Thursday, Duke led the way with four first round picks. Paolo Banchero went first overall to the Magic to give Duke their second No. 1 pick in the last four drafts (Zion Williamson, 2019). Fellow Blue Devils AJ Griffin, Mark Williams and Wendell Moore all also went in the first round to make it four for the night for Duke.

National champion Kansas placed a pair of wings in the first this year. Consensus All-American and Final Four MOP Ochai Agbaji was the final pick of the lottery at 14th to the Cavaliers, while Christian Braun went just seven picks later at No. 21 to the Nuggets.

Kentucky also landed two players in the first round. Shaedon Sharpe, who never played a minute while with the Wildcats, went seventh to the Trail Blazers. Meanwhile, TyTy Washington, who had the second half of his season marred by a foot injury, nearly fell to the second but was snagged at 29.

Lastly, North Carolina failed to get a player picked in the first round. They returned four of their five starters off the 2022 runner-up team and the fifth, Brady Manek, had no shot at being picked.

All told, Duke, Kentucky and Kansas combined to account for eight of the 30 first round picks. That’s 26.7% of the entire round. Only further proves that in college basketball, the blue bloods run the show. Looking ahead to 2023, more of the same is in store.