5 best NBA Draft prospects in the NCAA Tournament

5. Mohamed Bamba

Bamba is a talented center prospect currently playing for the University of Texas Longhorns. Bamba is among the top defensive centers in the country, with over 100 blocked shots on the season. Bamba is able to easily contest shots anywhere on the court, thanks to his reported 7-foot-9 wingspan. He also has an incredible vertical jump, which allows him to elevate to heights that few players are capable of. If you’re a point guard driving into the lane, not only is it going to be damn near impossible to pass the ball around him, but if you want to get a shot off, you’re going to have to loft the ball nearly 14 feet into the air to avoid getting swatted.

Just look at how high he’s able to get on this dunk, where his elbow is nearly above the square on the backboard.

While Bomba is a defensive prodigy, his offensive game isn’t much more than set jumpers, putbacks, and basic big men moves. He’s a beast on the offensive glass, using his length and reach to snare missed shots, collecting himself, then powering through post defenders for one-handed jams. He attempts 1.7 3-pointers per game, but has a slow, uncomfortable looking form on his jumper, which shows up on the stat sheet, as he shot just 28 percent this season. He’s a capable screener, but lacks experience and chemistry with the Texas guards in the pick and roll game as a dive man.

There are going to be questions about his ability to defend quicker guards in the NBA, due to his size and lateral quickness. Bamba does have the length however to make things extremely uncomfortable for them on the perimeter, even if they decide to pull up for stepback jumpers, as he’s demonstrated multiple times in college that he’s able to close out and deflect shots from some of the quickest guards in the Big XII.