Which NCAA Conferences Have Produced the Most NBA Talent in Recent Years?

As the 2025 college basketball season looms, there are a number of NBA hopefuls on NCAA rosters.

The 2026 draft class will likely see a trio of college players be selected with the first three picks, as Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer and AJ Dybantsa are viewed as the top prospects at the moment. Alongside the aforementioned trio, Mikel Brown Jr., Nate Ament and Chris Cenac have the chance to be premier prospects as well after impressive high school careers.

Brown and Boozer are set to start their college careers in the ACC, while Cenac, Dybantsa and Peterson will play in the Big 12 as freshmen. Ament, a freshman at Tennessee, will compete in the SEC.

After the Big 12 was viewed as one of the nation's top conferences, the SEC and Big Ten have surged in recent years, rivaling the league headlined by Houston, Kansas, Arizona, Baylor and others. The ACC, which has been a traditional power in college basketball for years, has slipped some, but programs like Duke, North Carolina and others are still turning out NBA draft picks.

After conference realignment have shaken up college sports in the past few years, which leagues are currently producing the most NBA draft picks? Heres what the numbers say.

1. Big Ten; SEC

Over the past three years, both the SEC and Big 10 have averaged nine draft picks per class.

Rutgers product Dylan Harper, Kentucky's Reed Sheppard and former Alabama standout Brandon Miller have been selected in the top three of the last three NBA Drafts.

The SEC and Big Ten are the only conferences with double digit selections in any of the last three NBA Drafts. Both teams had 10 players picked in 2023, while the SEC saw 13 players taken in 2025 following just four in 2024.

2. ACC

The ACC has had an averaged of 7.3 players selected in the past three classes, headlined by 2025 top pick Cooper Flagg, who played one year at Duke.

In 2024, nine ACC players were selected in the NBA Draft, starting with Pittsburgh's Bub Carrington at No. 14 overall.

3. Big 12; other conferences

The Big 12 has averaged seven draft picks per cycle over the past three years.

Similarly, leagues other than the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC produced an averaged of seven players drafted each year since 2023.

Baylor's VJ Edgecombe is the Big 12's earliest draft pick of the last three classes.

4. Big East

Buoyed by an impressive run from Connecticut that saw the Huskies win two NCAA titles, the Big East rounds out the list of power conference programs to produce NBA Draft picks.

The league has seen an average of 6.3 players selected per cycle since 2023, with Stephon Castle and Donovan Clingan both picked in the top seven of the 2024 class.

Want to join the discussion? Like Draft Digest on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest NBA Draft news. You can also meet the team behind the coverage.