Florida makes Thomas Haugh highest-paid college basketball player ever, per report

Thomas Haugh was projected as a possible lottery pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. ESPN ranked the 6’9 junior wing at No. 13 overall on its big board, which is historically the best gauge of how NBA executives and scouts are viewing a player in the draft process. SB Nation had Haugh at No. 21 overall in its post-March Madness mock draft, and that might have been his floor. Players this highly regarded are almost always turning pro. NIL has now changed that.

Haugh announced he’s returning to Florida for his senior season on Wednesday. It’s a stunning decision that positions the Gators as the likely preseason No. 1 in the polls and the favorite for the 2027 national championship. Highly-regarded teammate Alex Condon also announced he was returning to school, and fellow Gators big man Rueben Chinyelu is testing the draft process but did not enter the transfer portal. It feels more likely than not that Chinyelu will return to Gainesville alongside Haugh and Condon to reunite a key trio on Florida’s 2024 national championship team.

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It’s not unprecedented for a projected lottery pick to return to school even before the NIL era. I remember writing about Miles Bridges and Robert Williams spurning the 2017 NBA Draft to return to Michigan State and Texas A&M respectively. Joakim Noah famously returned to Florida ahead of the 2006 NBA Draft, where he could have been the No. 1 overall pick. We’ve seen in football that NIL dollars are now big enough to keep even potential top-5 prospects in school for another year. Still, Haugh’s decision is a huge surprise. We haven’t had a player this highly touted bypass the NBA for a return to college in almost a decade.

It makes sense that Haugh had to get a huge NIL bag to come back to Florida, and reporter Sam Vecenie of The Athletic confirmed that’s the case:

Haugh is expected to be among the highest earners in college basketball next season, with sources familiar with the decision projecting that he’s in line to make around what he’d earn in his first two NBA seasons combined if he’d been drafted in the top 20 in this year’s draft

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/florida-makes-thomas-haugh-highest-220639749.html

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Publish date : 2026-04-23 22:06:00

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