The NCAA tournament got underway on Tuesday night with the First Four and that has consumed the minds of a lot of college basketball fans. For some teams though, their season is over and they will look forward to next year.
The Clemson Tigers are one of the teams not fortunate enough to make the NCAA tournament but they were on the bubble at one point this year. The future seemed pretty bright for Clemson as they have a budding star in Jaron Blossomgame and a lot of young talent around him.
Blossomgame is just a red-shirt junior so he does have another year of eligibility left, but he has thrown his name into the mix for the NBA Draft. The new NBA rules allow players to withdraw from the draft up until May 25 so Blossomgame will use this time to gather Intel from NBA people and see if staying in the pool makes sense for him.
Blossomgame has improved in every season since stepping foot on campus at Clemson and he is coming off of a fantastic junior season. Blossomgame was named to the first-team All-ACC after the season was over as he averaged 18.6 points per game (which was the highest for any Tiger in 15 years) and also increased his three-point shooting from 29 percent last season to 44 percent this season.
By filing for the draft, Blossomgame has just left his options open. He plans to see what kind of feedback he gets from scouts and other NBA people and says if it is not what he wants to hear he will return to Clemson for his senior season. The forward did not hire an agent but he is working closely with head coach Brad Brownell to make the best decision for his future.
Blossomgame is a 6-foot-7 forward who was not really on the NBA radar before this season because he profiles as a small forward due to his size but he couldn't really shoot the deep ball that well. This season he improved so much in that area that he has at least shown up on the radar a little bit. The latest mock draft from Draftexpress doesn't have Blossomgame going in either round but a lot can change between now and draft day.
As things stand it seems pretty likely that Blossomgame will return to Clemson for his senior season. It is rare for a player to go from undrafted in the mocks to a first-round or early second-round pick, but then again nobody expected Blossomgame to be first team All-ACC either. It is smart for the junior to gather as much information as possible now so that if he does decide to come back to school he knows exactly what he needs to work on for his senior season.
