Ohio State Buckeye and NBA prospect Jared Sullinger has verbally committed to return to Ohio State for his sophomore season.
After a disappointing round of 16 loss to Kentucky in the NCAA tournament on Saturday, the freshman power forward says he wants to stay on and have another shot at a nation championship.
The Buckeyes will lose senior guards John Lighty and John Diebler, who were both big contributors this year.
Ohio State have already committed high school guard Shannon Scott and center Amir Williams, who are both highly touted out of high school.
Should Sullinger change his mind and declare for the draft, he is expected by most to go in the top five.
mushi
Guest
I’ll still be very surprised if he recommits and I think it would be very poor advice for him to do it in order to “develop”. Mainly for three reasons. First is the obvious one. A body only has so many jumps and sprints in it. Get out and get paid for them rather than having the college slave trade benefit. Let alone the injury risk. Second is that players that are already hyped as top prospects often hurt their chances by returning unless they completely dominate. Next year the focus wont’ be on his successes it will be on his failures and highlighting them as to why he shouldn’t be a top 5 pick. Third, and most important - He’ll learn more about playing in the NBA by playing in the Nba. The learn another year in college is yet another basketball fallacy that doesn’t hold water from any angle you approach it from. Quantity of Play: Will he play more minutes of competitive basketball in College than the NBA – um not a chance. He has played what about 1,200 minutes this year. You know how many minutes a game he needs to average over 82 games to get to the same total? 14 minutes. Here is a list of players that played at least 20 minutes a game or more (equivalent of an entire 1/3 of a season more than Jared): Paul George, Gary Neal, John Wall, Blake Griffin, Greg Monroe, Landry Fields, Ed Davis, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe, Evan Turner, Wesley Johnson, Christian Eyenga and Jordan Crawford. There were another 12 with 14 minutes or more. So in the NBA he’ll play more Quality of Play: He won’t just play more in the NBA he will actually play against NBA players. What do you think helps more in learning how to play in the NBA, beating up on list of player whose only hope of getting into an NBA game is buying a ticket and sitting in a plastic chair or playing against NBA players most of whom were elite college players back when they knew less about the game. So he’ll learn more per minute in the NBA. Coaching and Development: Do we honestly believe that the level of coaching at the College level is better quality and netter suited to preparing a player for the NBA than that available at the NBA (even after the repeated failures of college coaches coming into the pros?). This is before even factoring in the vast disparity in the quantity of practice and the quality of the players you actually practice against.
Connor Kret
Roar Rookie
In the last few days his dad and he have come out confirming it. Saying he wants to win a national championship and will give it at least one more shot. Also they said he wants to develop his PF skills (natural C) with playing time in college rather than practice time in the pros.
mushi
Guest
I think his verbal commitment is worht the paper it was written on. He'd just lost an important game I don't think he had his "long term career" thinking cap on at the time
Simmo
Guest
I hope we don't have to wade through every piece of college basketball news. We'd have no time left to have code wars
Wall-Nut
Guest
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