Seventeen former SEC players have been invited to this year’s NBA Draft Combine.
On Friday, the NBA announced its initial list of 73 attendees for the 2026 combine, which will take place May 10-17 in Chicago. The list will be added to at the conclusion of the NBA G League Draft Combine.
In total, 8 league schools will be represented at this year’s Combine. Arkansas leads all SEC teams with 4 players invited to the event. Tennessee and Kentucky each have 3 players heading to Chicago. Vanderbilt and Alabama have 2. Auburn, Florida, and Texas will each be represented by 1 player.
The list of former SEC players is below:
- Amari Allen, Alabama
- Labaron Philon Jr., Alabama
- Darius Acuff Jr., Arkansas
- Trevon Brazile, Arkansas
- Billy Richmond III, Arkansas
- Meleek Thomas, Arkansas
- Keyshawn Hall, Auburn
- Rueben Chinyelu, Florida
- Otega Oweh, Kentucky
- Malachi Moreno, Kentucky
- Jayden Quaintance, Kentucky
- Nate Ament, Tennessee
- Ja’Kobi Gillespie, Tennessee
- Felix Okpara, Tennessee
- Dailyn Swain, Texas
- Tyler Tanner, Vanderbilt
- Tyler Nickel, Vanderbilt
Acuff is the headliner from the league; the former Razorback guard is in the mix to be a top-5 pick in this year’s NBA Draft. He’ll be joined at the Combine by Duke’s Cameron Boozer, BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, and Kansas’s Darryn Peterson — 3 players in the running to be the No. 1 overall selection.
Swain, Ament, and Quaintance are all projected to be lottery picks in the most recent mock draft from The Ringer. Philon is projected to fall just outside the lottery, taken with pick No. 15. ESPN’s Jeremy Woo has 8 former SEC players listed in the top 30 on his latest big board.
The SEC has produced 5 first-round draft picks in each of the last 2 drafts. It hasn’t produced more than 6 first-round selections in a single cycle since 9 former SEC players were taken in the opening round of the 2021 NBA Draft.
This year’s first round takes place on June 23 in Brooklyn.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
