How a Historic Outlier in the NCAA Title Game could Impact the 2025 NBA Draft

The college basketball season has come to an end.

After an entertaining 2024-25 campaign, the Florida Gators defeated the Houston Cougars to earn the program's third national title. The championship game capped off a competitive Final Four field that featured four No. 1 seeds for the first time since 2008.

The history didn't stop there, though.

On Monday night, not a single first-year player competed for Florida or Houston in the title game, marking the first time since 1989 that zero freshman appeared in the national championship.

No freshmen played in the national championship game for the first time since 1989.
— Jared Berson (@JaredBerson) April 8, 2025

Last season, true freshman Stephon Castle played an integral part in Connecticut's second consecutive national championship team. The year prior, true freshman Donovan Clingan had an important role for the Huskies as they won their first title since 2014.

Both of the aforementioned players are now enjoying solid rookie seasons in the NBA, with Castle likely to win Rookie of the Year.

A few players from the 2025 championship game will likely see their name called in the upcoming NBA Draft, but zero freshman making an appearance in the game signals a larger change across college basketball that could impact the draft.

The transfer portal has allowed college teams to add talented players who may have been undervalued as recruits. Florida, for instance, was led by Walter Clayton Jr., who started his college career at Iona.

With the aforementioned system in place, the most successful college teams are typically built around players who have been in the NCAA for a few seasons. Of course, many of the top prospects in the NBA Draft each year will still come from the international ranks, or one-and-done college players, but the rest of the draft will seemingly be filled out by players who have moved between schools.

Aside from Clayton, players like Texas Tech's JT Toppin, Duke's Sion James, Michigan's Danny Wolf and Auburn's Johni Broome are all likely to be drafted this summer after playing for multiple teams in college.

With transfer portal numbers reaching over 1,000 entrants this year alone, it appears that many NBA Draft prospects this year and moving forward will be players who have transferred between schools.

There is a chance that the days of smaller schools like Belmont, Davidson and Murray State producing first round picks are gone, as bigger programs with more NIL funding can offer more money and exposure.

Of course, 2025 could be just an outlier, rather than an indicator of the future.

Duke nearly reached the national title game with three of the team's best players being true freshman, and teams like Michigan State still pulled off successful seasons with first-year players serving significant roles.

As another talented crop of freshman enters the NCAA in the 2026 season, a different group of newcomers will have the opportunity to make 2025's title game an outlier, rather than a regularity.

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