The idea that Crawford has gone from not even testing the draft waters to 95% gone in the course of five months strikes me as being rather far-fetched. Exactly three juniors went in the first round this past year. Jackson was the ACCPOY on the eventual national champions, one was a big guy who quadrupled his production from the year before, and Kuzma was another big who saw a 50% increase in production. Even in the second round, you're mostly looking at POY types (Brooks, Williams-Goss, Ojeleye), two of whom were in their fourth year already, and another big (Bell) with a significant jump in his stats. The only outlier is Sumner, who had a bizarre and injury-riddled career.
The point about him being what he is and beginning his professional career earlier applied with equal force to Justin Gray, L.D. Williams, Travis McKie, and every other Wake senior who was good enough to play professionally but didn't have a realistic shot at the NBA. To my knowledge, we've lost a senior once to a non-NBA professional league, and Dinos was a bit of a special circumstance. That's not a compelling argument for 95+% of college players nationwide.
Maybe there are circumstances I'm not aware of, or Crawford has already told the staff he had a sudden change of heart after not even going through the draft process last spring, but that rumor seems built more on WF Charlie Brown syndrome and general panic monkeyism than any real line of reasoning.
In any event, if Ayo goes to Illinois like a dumbbutt, we should just get Jalen Lecque to reclassify. Then add Harris, Balsa, and our choice of other top-five prospects and win the whole thing while Illinois gets bounced in the first round of the CBI by Eastern Montana State
