This hasn’t been the season that South Carolina — the next team on the Kentucky men’s basketball schedule — had been hoping for halfway through SEC play.
The Gamecocks are only one year removed from being picked to finish last in the league and ending up just one victory short of the SEC regular-season championship instead. This time around, they’re 0-9 in the conference, dead last in the 16-team standings. That doesn’t mean they’re not capable of pulling an upset on any given night. They’ve already taken some of the league’s best teams to the absolute limit. It helps to have one of the most promising players in all of college basketball on their roster.
Collin Murray-Boyles began the season as arguably the top NBA draft prospect in the SEC, and he’s still firmly in that conversation as the 2024-25 campaign draws closer to its end. The 6-foot-7, 245-pound forward from Columbia, S.C. was well-regarded as a pro prospect after his freshman season last year, but he didn’t even go through the NBA draft process in 2024, opting instead to return to his hometown school without any drawn-out, stay-or-go drama.
“I think just knowing where I was at and just knowing what I can do to improve,” Murray-Boyles said of that decision. “And just knowing that it wasn’t my goal. Like, my goal coming to college was never to be a one and done. I was always just focused on being here with my college and just playing at the best of my ability. And the draft wasn’t really my number one priority.” After that freshman season, Murray-Boyles was projected by some as a possible first-round draft pick. Staying in school — without even testing the waters — could have been a risk.
But, even with South Carolina struggling as a team, the 20-year-old sophomore has retained his lofty draft status. The most recent update to ESPN’s list of the top 100 prospects for the 2025 NBA draft had Murray-Boyles at No. 19, with Oklahoma point guard Jeremiah Fears (No. 10) and Texas shooting guard Tre Johnson (No. 11) as the only SEC players ahead of him. And Murray-Boyles’ unique skill set — along with his untapped potential as a shooter — could lead an interested NBA team to reach for him closer to the top of the draft .
(Other mock drafts have him as high as top-10 range.) South Carolina forward Collin Murray-Boyles is projected as a first-round pick in this year’s NBA draft. Joshua Boucher jboucher@thestate.com South Carolina’s player to watch Going into Saturday’s game in Rupp Arena, he’s averaging 15.5 points and 8.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.6 steals per game. He’s also shooting 59.7% from the field — amazingly, the exact same number as last season, though he’s taken three more shots per game on average this season — and ranks seventh among high-major players nationally in that stat.
