On the Monroe front, only tea leaves to read:
- The consensus among draftniks (check out here and here) appears to be that Monroe will be roughly the ninth pick in the draft, behind John Wall, Evan Turner, DeMarcus Cousins, Derrick Favors, Al-Farouq Aminu, Cole Aldrich, Ed Davis, and Wesley Johnson. To date, only five (Wall, Turner, Cousins, Aminu, and Aldrich) have declared, and rumors suggest Davis and Johnson may return for another year of school. Perhaps Monroe will get lured in by rising draft stock if those two opt out of the draft; the prospect of Syracuse getting Johnson back but the Hoyas without Monroe is nauseating.
- Recent snippits from ESPN’s various gurus suggest that they’re not convinced that Monroe will go:
- Andy Katz, assuming the Hoyas will have monroe and projecting them as #7 in the nation next season (probably an under-rate, as long as Ohio isn’t on the schedule): “I didn’t get a sense Sunday night that Greg Monroe is definitely gone.”
- Chad Ford, “He’s a different kid. Very humble. Likes college. Wants to keep improving. I think it wouldn’t be an awful idea [to return to school]. But if he declared, my guess is that he goes somewhere between 8 and 14.”
*As noted previously, NCAA rules allow underclassmen who declare but do not retain an agent to provisionally test the draft waters and return to school if they so choose. The deadline for returning to school is May 8, meaning that, if Monroe provisionally declares, the Monroe Watch may be 32 days from ending. Given that Monroe’s draft stock is relatively certain, though, the odds of a provisional draft declaration appear to be somewhat lower.
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