NBA Draft Players By College: UCLA And Arizona Still Lead The Pac-12

Mike Rutherford of SB Nation compiled some data on previous NBA drafts by college, and calculated the schools that enjoyed the greatest success in putting players in the league. Using Rutherford's scoring system, we have three points for a lottery pick (the lottery included 14, 13, 11 and nine teams at various points over the past 25 years); two points for a non-lottery first-round pick; and one point for a second-round pick.

Here's how the Pac-12 fared after the 2012 NBA Draft.

1. Arizona - 59 (34)
2. UCLA - 51 (32)
3. Stanford - 27 (14)
4. Washington - 23 (13)
5. California - 22 (12)
6. USC - 21 (12)
7. Oregon - 16 (9)
8. Utah - 16 (8)
9. Arizona State - 13 (8)
10. Oregon State - 13 (6)
11. Colorado - 12 (6)
12. Washington State - 7 (5)

So the Washington Huskies didn't have a good season on the basketball court. Fair enough. However, their success in the draft allowed them to leapfrog USC and Cal in the overall draft rankings from the past few years. Washington getting two of their players to be drafted in the first round might be a sign of serious undercoaching from Lorenzo Romar, but it still proves he can produce NBA-caliber players, which might be as a big a factor.

Washington had a pretty rough recruiting season last year, so getting two first rounders has to help their efforts with current top targets like Jabari Bird and Aaron Gordon.

Despite no draft picks this year from either Arizona or UCLA, the Wildcats and Bruins remain well ahead of any other school in the conference. You can expect both coaching staffs to weigh heavily on this fact in their eventual recruiting pitch to their newest targets.