NCAA vs Euro Domestic Leagues

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Ok, this got posted in the 2024 NBA draft thread (HERE)

How would we currently rate the quality of high major college?

I think the portal/NIL/Covid Year has arguably increased the level of play somewhat significantly via talent consolidation in the top conferences and keeping guys in school longer.

I always struggle gauging against the Euro domestic leagues though. Plus the G-League is kind of in a weird place.

The thing about the NCAA is that the bottom is straight up garbage, but the good teams are actually very good.
I'd say a top 25 NCAA team is probably good enough to compete in the Euroleague and not get totally embarrassed, and as someone who watches a fair bit of Euroleague I am pretty sure Zach Edey would be the best player there on day 1. And Knecht would be a huge Euroleague superstar as well.
If they are in a top program and performing well, I don't think they are much worse if any than good Euroleague players.
If they aren't in a ranked program then they are probably not that good though and wouldn't see much playing time though.

IMO, I think that Euro Domestic Leagues are a significant step up from NCAA ball. I figure 90-95% of NCAA players do not have enough natural talent to play pro anywhere, ever... Never mind them having their games developed enough when they are 20 or so years old. College ballers could compete with foreign pro’s back in the 1970’s (and earlier), but the US started sending professional teams to the Olympics in 1992, and there was good reason for that...

So let’s do a little research.

The SEC is a decent conference, and let's look at 13/14. (I picked 13/14 as that gives the players 10 years to develop their game and get onto a pro team somewhere.)

Here’s a link to the SEC page on sports reference for 2013/14.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/conferences/sec/men/2014.html
That will give us who played on each team.

The realgm page for the SEC in 13/14 is here,
https://basketball.realgm.com/ncaa/conferences/Southeastern-Conference/8/stats/2014/Averages/Qualified/All/Season/All/points/desc/1/

You can drill down to an individual team using the team selection box in the header at the top of the page. Then you can click through to the individual players. REALGM only show the players who had a career beyond college basketball. Unfortunately, they do show stats for players who got 3 games in the Mexican LNBP and then got cut. So, you have to look into the player's actual games played to assess whether the player had enough ability to actually play pro (that league, that season, of course). I propose setting a floor of sticking for 20 pro games, as having enough ability to play pro.

Then we need to go through the SEC rosters, looking the players up and figure out :

1) How many players played for that SEC team in that year.

2) Which players had enough talent to ever play in a real pro league (ie. At some point said player played 20 games with a pro team somewhere)?

3) Which players had enough talent to get into a such a league in the 14/15 season (ie, in theory, was good enough to play in a pro league in 13/14 as well...)

Then we add up the totals for 1), 2) and 3), and figure out the percentages.

Obviously the calculating the same percentages for any euro domestic league (eg for example, The ABA), will result in 100%...

There were 14 teams in the SEC that year, and in alphabetical order, Alabama comes first. I'm going to do that roster in the next post...

I hope that other posters will be willing to chip in and do a team themselves... Heck, if we get enough enthusiasm, we could do the research for the top 16 seeds in the big dance that year.

EDIT: Currently this project does not count service in the G-league, NBA Summer League, nor NBA Pre-Season as completing the real pro league requirement.

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OK, Alabama -

1) Sports Reference has 11 players listed for that year

2) a) Trevor Releford played 28 games in the Greek HEBA A1 in 15/16
b) Levi Randolph played 38 games in Italian Lega A in 16/17
c) Retin Obasohan played 27 games in Italian Lega A in 16/17
d) Shannon Hale played 20 games in the Luxembourg Total League in 18/19
e) Jimmie Taylor played 22 games in the Polish P-OBL in 19/20

Nick Jacobs, Rodney Cooper, Algie Key, did not meet the games played restriction

A Total of 5 players (from 11) made the games played restriction. That's actually better than I expected. Let's see how the rest of the teams fall out.

3) Trevor Releford did not make the 20 game cut off in the Polish OBL in 14/15
Levi Randolph did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a senior at Alabama)
Retin Obasohan did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a Junior at Alabama)
Shannon Hale did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a Soph at Alabama)
Nick Jacobs did not play pro in 14/15 (he transferred to Georgia Tech and had to sit a year)
Rodney Cooper did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a senior at Alabama)
Algie Key did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a senior at Washburn)
Jimmie Taylor did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a Soph at Alabama)

A total of 0 players made the games played restriction in 14/15

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Next, Arkansas

1) Sports Reference has 14 players listed for that year

2) a) Bobby Portis played 62 games in the NBA in 15/16
b) Michael Qualls played 33 games in Israeli I-BSL in 16/17
c) Coty Clarke played 21 games in the Puerto Rican BSN in 16/17
d) Alandise Harris played 26 games in the Hungarian NBIA in 17/18
e) Anthlon Bell played 43 games in Mexican CIBACOPA in 16/17

Ky Madden, Fred Gulley , did not meet the games played restriction

A Total of 5 players (from 14) made the games played restriction.
(Running total 10/25)

3)
Ky Madden did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a senior at Arkansas)
Bobby Portis did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a Soph at Arkansas)
Coty Clarke played in the G League in 14/15 (44 games)
Alandise Harris did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a senior at Arkansas)
Anthlon Bell did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a Junior at Arkansas)
Anthlon Bell did not play pro in 14/15

A total of 0 players made the games played restriction in 14/15
(Running total 0/25)

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Auburn

1) Sports Reference has 14 players listed for that year

2) a) Chris Denson played 40 games in the DBL in 14/15
b) KT Harrel played 32 games in the Turkish TBL in 15/16

Tahj Shamsid-Deen, Allen Payne, Asauhn Dixon-Tatum did not meet the games played restriction

A Total of 2 players (from 14) made the games played restriction.
(Running total 12/39)

3)
a) Chris Denson played 40 games in the Netherlands DBL in 14/15
KT Harrel did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a senior at Auburn)
Tahj Shamsid-Deenl did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a Soph at Auburn)
Allen Payne played 15 games in the British BBL in 14/15
Asauhn Dixon-Tatum played in the G League (31 games)

A total of 1 players made the games played restriction in 14/15
(Running total 1/39)

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Florida

1) Sports Reference has 14 players listed for that year

2) a) Casey Prather played 27 games in the Australian NBL in 15/16
b) Scottie Wilbekin played 32 games in the Australian NBL in 14/15
c) Michael Frazier played 38 games in the Italian Serie A2 Basket in 16/17
d) Patric Young played 24 games in the Turkish T-BSL in 14/15
e) Dorian Finney-Smith played 81 games in the NBA in 16/17
f) Kasey Hill played 39 games in the Hungarian NBIA in 17/18
g) Wilfried Yeguete played 35 games in the French Jeep Elite in 14/15

did not meet the games played restriction

A Total of 7 players (from 14) made the games played restriction.
(Running total 19/53)

3)
Casey Prather played in the G League in 14/15 (46 games)
a) Scottie Wilbekin played 32 games in the Australian NBL in 14/15
Michael Frazier did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a Junior at Florida)
b) Patric Young played 24 games in the Turkish T-BSL in 14/15
Dorian Finney-Smith did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a Junior at Florida)
Kasey Hill did not play pro in 14/15 (he was a Soph at Florida)
c) Wilfried Yeguete played 35 games in the French Jeep Elite in 14/1

A total of 3 players made the games played restriction in 14/15
(Running total 4/53)

Florida won the SEC that year, going 18-0, with the next best team was 12-6. Given these results, I'm not surprised.

[JMAC3]

I think the way you are looking at this is pretty broken view. Looking at an entire roster of college basketball players where half of them do not play makes no sense to me. So yeah nobody ever expects players 8-15 to be professionals after college careers.

The best college teams probably have starting 5s that can rival the best pro leagues, but we are talking about maybe the top 20 college teams. After that the pro leagues are better and of course the pro leagues 9-15 on the roster are better than the college teams 9-15.

For Example: UConn is probably one of the best teams in the French league right now. Clingan, Castle are top 10 picks which most French teams don't have. Karaban, Newton and Spencer all will play professionally somewhere for a good amount of years.

Arizona also finished as 12th ranked in AP Polls. I fully believe their top 7 guys could compete in the French league with Ballo, Love, Larsen, Johnson, Boswell, Bradley and Lewis. Half of those guys will get time in NBA at some point and the rest will be successful overseas players for sure.

But yeah a team like Penn State, Indiana State, Oregon etc are probably not seeing much success in a pro league.