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Arizona basketball star Koa Peat to remain in 2026 NBA Draft
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- Arizona basketball star Koa Peat to remain in 2026 NBA Draft
Arizona basketball star Koa Peat to remain in 2026 NBA Draft appeared first on ClutchPoints . Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here .
Arizona basketball had one of the best teams in all of college basketball last season, but their March Madness run ended in disappointment. After rolling through the West Region all the way to the Final Four, the Wildcats were eliminated by eventual national champion Michigan in blowout fashion.
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Now, Tommy Lloyd and company have done a lot of work to try to rebuild the roster in a fashion that will allow the Wildcats to get back to the national semifinals next season. On Wednesday, they lost a big piece of that puzzle.
Star forward Koa Peat will not be coming back to Arizona and is remaining in the NBA Draft, ClutchPoints NBA insider Brett Siegel confirmed. Jason Scheer of 247 Sports was the first to report Peat's decision.
"Arizona's Koa Peat is remaining in the NBA Draft, league sources told @ClutchPoints," Siegel reported on X, formerly Twitter. "The feeling over the last week through workouts is that Peat received a late first-round promise, but his reps at Klutch Sports believe he is still a top-20 pick."
In recent weeks, Peat had been going through the NBA Draft process while still maintaining the ability to go back to school for his sophomore season. However, after going through the draft process, the freshman star clearly believes he is comfortably a first-round prospect and will be going pro after one season in college.
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Peat played 36 games as a freshman for Arizona. He averaged 14.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game while shooting a very efficient 52.8% from the field. He is a very interesting NBA prospect as a result of that standout season, but there are still some drawbacks to his game.
If Peat ends up as a lottery pick, his size, ability to dominate in the paint and be a versatile defensive piece will have caught a team's eye. However, if he falls out of the lottery, his lack of shooting ability and status as a bit of a positional tweener will have contributed to that fall. With this decision, Peat becomes one of the more interesting players to watch in the first round this summer.
Related: Potential 1st-rounder flips from NBA Draft to St. John's basketball
Related: Michigan State star Jeremy Fears Jr. pays tribute to Tom Izzo after announcing return
