NBA fan’s guide to watching college basketball this season

Gone are the days when NBA fans could learn everything they needed to know about the top college prospects by tuning into conference championship week and doing a little prep work for March Madness. 

Talent is spread across the country like never before, and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and relaxed transfer rules have made it increasingly difficult to identify the best NBA prospects in the 2025 draft. 

But fear not, here’s a simple guide to help NBA fans get the most out of their college basketball viewing experience this season. Watch the following three teams, and you’ll have a good understanding of just how special this draft class could be. Plus, you’ll see why one program has distanced itself from the rest of the country in terms of player development. 

Duke

First up — and it pains me to write this — is Duke. 

The Blue Devils enter this season with four freshmen who project to be first-round picks — Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, Isaiah Evans and Khaman Maluach. Knueppel, Evans and Maluach are decorated prospects, but the ultimate prize of the 2025 draft is Flagg. 

When Flagg, a 6-foot-9 wing, first burst onto the scene a couple of years ago, he looked like a more defensively inclined version of Blake Griffin, the former NBA star. That version of Flagg was enough to get NBA front offices salivating. 

Well, fortunately for Duke and whichever team wins the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery, Flagg’s development did not stagnate there. Instead, it accelerated. Now, he looks like a jumbo version of Paul George on the perimeter and still projects to be a menacing help-side rim protector on defense. 

Like many generational prospects before him, he’s doing legendary things already, like dominating scrimmages for the Select Team against the eventual Olympic gold-medal U.S. team as a 17-year-old.

Rutgers

The next must-watch team is Rutgers — yes, you read that right.

Remember when top prospects Michael Beasley and Bill Walker randomly played for Kansas State in 2007-2008? Well, the Scarlet Knights have a similar situation this season, as they will have two players — Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper — who would ordinarily enter the season in a tight race for the No. 1 pick if it weren’t for Flagg. 

Bailey, a 6-foot-8 small forward, has physical tools and abilities that have drawn comparisons to the likes of Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady and should be a top-flight scorer immediately. And Harper, whose father Ron was Michael Jordan’s point guard for the Bulls’ second three-peat, inherited his dad’s size (6-foot-6, 220 pounds) and early career athleticism, but he also has an advanced feel for the game. 

Expect Rutgers to be inconsistent and wildly entertaining, but it will also have the ceiling to play with any team in the country when these two are feeling it.

Connecticut

Finally, we have the reigning back-to-back champions, the UConn Huskies.

Head coach Dan Hurley’s UConn is the new version of Jay Wright’s Villanova teams in that you can expect them to consistently churn out well-rounded, winning NBA players every year (look no further than the Knicks’ Villanova-laden roster). 

UConn recruits high-IQ, high-character players and develops them as well as any program has in years. While this year’s roster probably won’t have two top-seven picks as it did this past draft, expect sweet-shooting freshman Liam McNeeley, a 6-foot-7 small forward, to play his way into the lottery and look for do-it-all junior forward Alex Karaban, who stands 6-foot-8, to join McNeeley in the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft. It wouldn’t be surprising if others emerged as potential NBA players as well. 

Hurley is the most innovative mind in basketball. His offensive system is built off read-and-react principles, complex off-ball screening and hard cutting. Every decision has a counter depending upon how the defense reacts. It grinds opponents to dust throughout a 40-minute game and makes for a brand of beautiful basketball that has caught the attention of LeBron James, JJ Redick and other great basketball minds. 

Hurley flirted with becoming the Los Angeles Lakers head coach this offseason and has made it known that the Association is his ultimate destination. So tune into the Huskies if you want to see what the future of the NBA will look like.