2024 Aggregate Mock Draft: Zac Risacher, Nikola Topic, Cody Williams, Reed Sheppard rising

HoopsHype’s 2024 NBA mock draft with Nikola Topic, Cody Williams, Reed Sheppard rising with scouting reports from NBA executives and scouts.

With March Madness upon us, HoopsHype has updated where the top prospects currently stand for the 2024 NBA Draft by compiling 10 mock drafts from ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, NBA Big Board, Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, SB Nation, and USA TODAY’s For The Win.

HoopsHype also spoke with several NBA executives and scouts for their insight on the prospects for the third edition of the aggregate mock draft. The consensus from a majority of NBA talent evaluators is this draft class isn’t as top heavy with franchise-altering talent, but is deep with several potential sleepers to be selected.

An explanation for HoopsHype’s Draft Predictor from colleague Alberto de Roa, who contributed research to this story, can be found here.

NOTE: These rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for the overall consensus, not our own opinion. For example, if a player was the first pick on a publication’s mock draft, he received 60 points. If a player was second, he received 59 points, and so on. We then tabulated the total number of points for each player’s consensus ranking.

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George Kliavkoff out as Pac-12 commissioner, inviting the question of what’s next

Will there be another commissioner, or was George Kliavkoff the last Pac-12 commish in history?

George Kliavkoff will not be the commissioner of the Pac-12 in March. His tenure will end in February, ending a story marked by failure, flops, and foul-ups. Kliavkoff isn’t the man who is solely responsible for the demise of the Pac-12, but he certainly shoulders part of the blame along with Larry Scott, the Pac-12 CEO Group, and other people who made other decisions which undercut the conference in various ways over the past decade.

Kliavkoff memorably failed to get a media rights deal done which would have provided enough revenue to keep the Pac-12 intact. He was unable to earn the trust of the CEO Group, but he also didn’t insist on moving forward with certain plans and was indecisive in moments of crisis. He needed to listen to Pac-12 school presidents and chancellors, but he also needed to lead them and guide them with a strong hand in moments when he needed to take charge. Kliavkoff did inherit a huge mess from Larry Scott, and he was never dealt a strong set of cards, but he also didn’t seem to grasp the dynamics of the conference he entered. Not providing an authoritative presence was a failure of leadership, and it’s why the Pac-12 has splintered.

Kliavkoff’s exit raises natural questions about whether the Pac-12 — more specifically, the Pac-2 of Washington State and Oregon State — will seek a commissioner or will adopt a different governance and leadership model.

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2024 Aggregate NBA Mock Draft: Ron Holland, Isaiah Collier, Alex Sarr battle for No. 1 pick

HoopsHype’s 2024 aggregate NBA mock draft features Ron Holland, Isaiah Collier, and Alex Sarr battling for the No. 1 overall pick. The story includes scouting reports from NBA executives and scouts for each player, as reported by Senior NBA Insider Michael Scotto.

With the calendar flipping to 2024, HoopsHype has updated where the top prospects currently stand for the NBA Draft by compiling nine mock drafts from ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, NBADraft.net, Yahoo, CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, SB Nation, and USA TODAY’s For The Win.

HoopsHype also spoke with multiple NBA executives and scouts for their insight on the prospects for the second edition of the 2024 aggregate mock draft. The consensus is this draft class is underwhelming compared to years past.

“You’ll see a lot of guys getting drafted at positions they shouldn’t and teams trading out,” an NBA executive told HoopsHype. “Some guys who would’ve been second-round picks last year if they were lucky could go in the first round this year.”

An explanation for HoopsHype’s Draft Predictor from colleague Alberto de Roa, who contributed research to this story, can be found here.

NOTE: These rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for the overall consensus, not our own opinion. For example, if a player was the first pick on a publication’s mock draft, he received 60 points. If a player was second, he received 59 points, and so on. We then tabulated the total number of points for each player’s consensus ranking.

Skyrocketing value for Women’s NCAA Tournament will mean increased revenue for USC, Big Ten

USC is rising when the Women’s NCAA Tournament will become a new revenue generator for schools and conferences.

The NCAA reached a new eight-year media rights agreement with ESPN for various NCAA championships, featuring the Women’s NCAA Tournament.

ESPN put out a release with details on the detail. That release included this very important note:

“With the significant increase in value of the new agreement, NCAA members will explore revenue distribution units for the women’s basketball tournament. The Division I Board of Directors Finance committee began discussion of revenue distribution philosophies and new models this year, and those discussions will continue with membership in the coming year.”

The men’s version of the NCAA Tournament has had a win unit structure for a long time. For each NCAA Tournament win, a school generates money for itself and its conference.

The women have not had a win-unit structure because the media rights value of the Women’s NCAA Tournament has never been considerable.

That has changed with this media rights deal. As Rachel Bachman of The Wall Street Journal has noted (in a tweet shown below), the value of the Women’s NCAA Tournament has jumped nearly $60 million per year as a result of this ESPN deal. There is finally a money pool large enough to divide among schools.

USC is poised to be a big beneficiary of this deal, once a win-unit structure is finalized. This is viewed as a “when, not if” situation. It will happen. It’s just a matter of getting this lined up before the 2024-2025 season.

This year — 2024 — marks the end of the current ESPN deal with the NCAA for the women’s basketball tournament and other sports championships, so the win-unit structure won’t be in place. It should be in place for next season. USC, with a top-15 team now, is bringing in the No. 1 recruiting class in the country for next season to add to superstar JuJu Watkins. The Trojans are putting themselves in position to win a lot of NCAA Tournament games and make a lot of dollars over the next eight years of this new ESPN-NCAA deal.

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ESPN, NCAA reach new eight-year TV rights deal; Women’s NCAA Tournament value soars

The Women’s NCAA Tournament gained roughly $60 million in value, relative to its previous media rights deal.

This is an expected story, but nevertheless a big one: ESPN and the NCAA have agreed on a new eight-year television rights deal running through 2032.

(h/t Bill Hofheimer of ESPN)

This deal is worth $920 million, or $115 million per year for each of the eight years. It is a deal which encompasses 40 different NCAA championships, but the big story is that the value of the Women’s NCAA Tournament, long seen as undervalued in the media marketplace, has now increased by a considerable degree.

An NCAA representative spoke on the matter, from the ESPN release:

“Finalizing this agreement ushers in yet another milestone for the NCAA positioning student-athletes first,” said Linda Livingstone, chair of the NCAA Board of Governors and Baylor University president. “Concurrent with the terms of the new media rights, several enhancements to student-athlete benefits across all three NCAA divisions will take effect, and this deal will help fund those important programs. And the national, integrated platform the family of ESPN networks provides will help grow the visibility of many NCAA sports, particularly for our women student-athletes.”

That last point about women athletes is relevant, given the jump in Women’s NCAA Tournament value:

That’s explosive and dramatic growth. The Women’s NCAA Tournament has grown roughly $60 million in value from the previous media rights deal with ESPN. This sets up women’s basketball schools such as USC to gain significant added revenue in the future, and we’ll talk more about that in a separate story.

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Florida State playoff snub could destroy the ACC, completely reshape realignment again

Realignment could spin furiously after the Florida State controversy. We’ll explain.

The snub of Florida State in the College Football Playoff was, first and foremost, a playoff story. Who is in and who is out? That was the most immediate drama on Sunday. If Florida State had been included, it would have been a much quieter Sunday than what we actually had. Because a 13-0 Power Five conference champion was excluded from the playoff, however, a true firestorm erupted. This was unprecedented in the playoff era, which dates back to 2014. The selection committee crossed a bright red line.

The fact that the snubbed team just happened to be from the ACC, and that the SEC benefited from the ACC getting snubbed, is an explosive event not just in the realm of the playoff and the bowl schedule, but in the realm of realignment. There’s a lot to talk about here.

Let’s dive in:

5 Stars: The best and the worst of Notre Dame’s win over Stanford

Once again, a lot of good for the Irish

The Irish really didn’t need to do much to defeat Stanford, as long as they played an average game, it should be a Notre Dame win. That’s exactly what happened, although you could argue that it wasn’t an average game for the Irish but a very good regular season win. There once again wasn’t too much to complain about, but here are the best, 5 stars, and worst, 1 star, performances for the Irish against the Cardinal.