College basketball’s national champion is often decided by who skips the NBA draft

The deadline for underclassmen to pull their name out of the NBA draft has come and gone, leaving us all with a relatively clear picture of how the nation’s top contenders are going to look in 2017-18. Arizona and Michigan State are being hailed as the big winners from the annual period of spring decision-making, while Oregon and reigning national champion North Carolina are being widely labeled as the biggest losers.

This is no small thing. While one-and-done sensations and unexpected breakout stars demand their fair share of headlines during the regular season, recent history has shown that the somewhat unexpected return of at least one already-established force is among the biggest pieces necessary for national title run in this era.

We’ll look at the last 10 national champions, but if we wanted to take it back a year further, we could. Florida’s star trio of Al Horford, Corey Brewer, and Joakim Noah (affectionately referred to as “The ’04s”) all delayed the NBA for one year in order to win back-to-back titles for the Gators.

2017: North Carolina (Justin Jackson, Kennedy Meeks)

After averaging 12.2 points per game on a UNC team that was beaten at the buzzer in the national title game, Jackson opted to return to Chapel Hill for his junior season. He went through the first part of the draft process and would have almost certainly been selected in the first round, but ultimately followed fellow front-court mate Kennedy Meeks in choosing to stay in school. The result? Jackson was named ACC Player of the Year and was the standout performer on a Tar Heel team that cut down the nets. He also figures to have improved his draft stock enough to be selected somewhere in the first 20 picks of next month’s draft.

2016: Villanova (None)

The Wildcats are the exception here. Jay Wright lost stars Darrun Hilliard (a second=-round pick) and JayVaughn Pinkston, but both were seniors. He also returned a handful of established college names, but none flirted with leaving early for the draft. Ryan Arcidiacono was a Big East Player of the Year, but never an NBA prospect. Josh Hart, who would emerge as one of college basketball’s brightest stars over the next two years, had been the team’s sixth man in 2014-15. All other key returnees on the roster had been solid, but not spectacular enough to draw significant attention from NBA coaches or scouts.

While Nova was loaded with established veteran talent the year it won it all, it was established veteran talent that they had never feared losing the spring before.

2015: Duke (Quinn Cook)

Despite his relatively modest numbers, there was some chatter in the spring of 2014 that Quinn Cook could forego his senior season and follow teammates Jabari Parker and Rodney Hood to the league. He quickly put that chatter to bed and returned as the captain and heart and soul of a national championship team otherwise dominated by newcomers.

Despite the attention paid to the one-and-done trio of Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones, and Justise Winslow, Cook earned All-ACC honors by averaging a career-best 16 ppg. Duke doesn’t win it all if he doesn’t opt to return to Durham for one more year.

2014: Connecticut (Shabazz Napier, DeAndre Daniels, Ryan Boatright)

Napier, who averaged 17.1 points and 4.6 assists per game as a junior in 2012-13, was the only real surprise of the three Huskies who made public their decisions to return to Storrs. Even so, Boatright had averaged 15.4 points the year before, and Daniels was third in scoring at just over 12 ppg and also led the team in rebounding.

With all that talent back, it’s not hard to believe that UConn wound up winning it all in 2014. What’s more difficult to grasp is why they had to do it via a somewhat miraculous run as a No. 7 seed.

2013: Louisville (Gorgui Dieng, Chane Behanan)

While the backcourt duo of Peyton Siva and Russ Smith came to define the 2012-13 national champions from Louisville, it was big men Gorgui Dieng and Chane Behanan who toyed briefly with the idea of a leap to the NBA the year before. While Dieng’s interest was discussed in brief rumors only, Behanan openly talked about the decision following U of L’s loss to Kentucky in the 2012 Final Four. Ultimately, both chose to come back for one more year. Dieng would go on to do enough as a junior to warrant being selected 21st overall in the 2013 draft.

2012: Kentucky (Terrence Jones, Doron Lamb)

Because of the precedent set in the early years of the Calipari era at Kentucky, most just assumed that Jones and Lamb (Jones especially) would be gone after one season in Lexington. Instead, the duo returned and joined forces with yet another No. 1 recruiting class as well as steady senior Darius Miller to form a team that was easily the best in the country in 2011-12. Despite all the attention paid to the freshmen, Calipari’s best Kentucky teams have always been the ones with a little bit of experience mixed in.

2011: Connecticut (Kemba Walker)

Walker had been unwilling to commit to returning to UConn for one more year during the final weeks of his sophomore season in 2010. In early April, however, he confirmed that he would be back as a junior in 2010-11. You know the rest. Walker put the Huskies on his back for one of the greatest March runs in college basketball history, first winning five games in five days to capture the Big East tournament title, and then winning six more straight to earn a national championship.

2010: Duke (Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, Jon Scheyer)

Coach K lost Gerald Henderson to an early entry in the spring of 2009, but he got the nucleus of a national title team back when Singler, Scheyer, and Smith all elected to come back. Of the three, Singler was the only one viewed as a real serious threat to leave early. Instead, he wound up joining Smith and Scheyer as four-year Dukies.

2009: North Carolina (Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green, Ty Lawson)

Hansbrough, the most heralded of the quartet as the 2008 national Player of the Year, made the quickest decision. He surprised many in late April by announcing that he would be back in Chapel Hill for his senior season with the goal of winning a national title. Ellington, Green, and Lawson were a bit more dramatic. The school’s announcement that all three would be back came less than an hour before the deadline for underclassmen to withdraw from the draft. The four standouts would eventually lead the Heels to a dominant NCAA tournament run the next March.

2008: Kansas (Brandon Rush, Darrell Arthur)

In 2012, Rush had become the first freshman ever to be named first team All-Big 12. A year later, he was named the league’s co-Player of the Year, and planned to leave for the NBA draft. A torn ACL ultimately led to his return to Kansas. Arthur, a highly talented big man coming out of high school, had earned All-Big 12 Rookie honors as a freshman, but opted not to return for one more season to try and play his way into the lottery a year later. Interestingly enough, the hero of Kansas’ 2008 national title, Mario Chalmers, did not publicly debate a decision of whether or not to leave KU after his sophomore year.