Loading

How Realistic Is It for HBCU Athletes to Go Major Pro? by Julien I. Johnson

The last time an HBCU athlete was drafted into the NBA in 2013, the most accomplished NBA players of today were just scratching the surface of their careers. LeBron James had just won his second of four career championships on the Miami Heat, Kevin Durant had no MVP on the Oklahoma City Thunder, Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash were both on the Lakers and Stephen Curry had never won a first-round playoff series on the Golden State Warriors.

The odds are stacked against HBCU athletes regarding their major professional aspirations.

Each major pro sport has its pipelines to gain elite-level talent, but only a select few make it to the big stage.

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 2022, of the 499,000 NCAA athletes, only 2 percent make it to the major pro leagues, such as the NBA and NFL.

The NFL has a big pool of players to choose from because it has thousands of roster spots. For the NBA, the pool of players greatly supersedes the about 450 total roster spots.

According to the NCAA in 2022, of the 18,800 men’s basketball athletes, only 1.2 percent make it to the NBA. If you’re an HBCU athlete, your chances are slim to none.

The last player to be drafted to the NBA from an HBCU was the 49th pick in the 2013 draft, Kyle O’Quinn, a Norfolk State University graduate, but today, there is only one HBCU athlete actually playing in the league today, a Tennessee State University graduate, Robert Covington.

“I’m the only HBCU alumni in the NBA currently for the last couple of years. I’m the lone survivor. It means a lot to me,” Covington said in a 2021 Oregon Public Broadcasting article.

Notable NBA Players Who Played At An HBCU

Interviews with an academic advisor, an athletic director and two basketball players at Morgan State University show how HBCU basketball players are aiming to play pro but are practical about their chances, and how, in a competitive environment, academics are essential to ensure students’ success post-graduation whether they play pro or not.

“You gotta want it,” Malik Miller, a senior guard at Morgan State University said. “If you want it bad enough, you’ll figure out a way to get it done, and that’s gonna help you regardless.”

New Opportunities

The NBA along with other major leagues have been offering an abundance of opportunities and resources post-2020 to build the HBCU talent pipeline and slowly get HBCUs greater recognition.

Morgan State University has been one of the main institutions invited to participate in multiple NBA HBCU showcases and tournaments, including the HBCU NBA All-Star Weekend game and the Invesco QQQ HBCU Legacy Classic, created by Michael B. Jordan.

“They were just tremendous opportunities to be on a National Stage,” Terrence Lollie, senior associate athletic director said.

“To get that first-class treatment from the NBA, then the folks at Invesco QQQ and Michael B. Jordan… Thank you to both of those entities and all of the companies and organizations that allowed those events to go off without a hitch and create a first-class experience for our student-athletes.”

Lollie said these events allow student-athletes to get a glimpse of what it takes to be a pro, especially with getting to meet basketball greats like Chris Paul, Stephen Curry and more. Then based on the athletes’ play, they may even be able to get major pro attention.

Players Taking Advantage

Dynamic 6-foot-1 guard for Morgan State, Isaiah Burke, experienced this first hand when he was invited to play at the second-ever HBCU All-Star Game in April 2023.

“They brought scouts to our practices, scouts to our workouts, scouts at our games. There were a couple agents that came up to me after that too,” Burke said about his experience at the game in Houston, TX. He averaged the second most points in the MEAC conference at 18.7 points for the 2022-23 season.

“One thing I knew when I was there, was there are 24 of us, including me. I know I’m one of the best in black college basketball,” Burke said.

But before his breakout final season at Morgan, he wasn’t.

Throughout his long tenure at Morgan, he had varying playing time and admits he almost quit basketball at one point after a couple of surgeries and losing loved ones, but he kept going.

“I knew nothing was going to be given to me, and I had to work that extra inch and do the extra things,” Burke said. “Rather than sleeping eight hours, I was sleeping four.”

And he lost those hours for good reason.

This was his first year as a go-to guy, and he’s been able to raise his attention to heights he never thought possible. Most of that was made possible by being good at the right time to take advantage of the opportunities given.

The same goes for Burke’s all-around 6-foot-4 guard teammate Malik Miller.

Both players came into their final season at Morgan ready to make a run for the MEAC Conference Championship while also improving their personal stock.

“I came in this year with a huge chip on my shoulder,” Miller said. “The whole time [Burke and I] played in summer leagues. We just are trying to make each other better, working our game and we both knew coming into this season that we’re coming to do everything we can to win.”

Miller came into the season with preseason All-MEAC honors, and he started his season averaging almost a double-double with about 18 points and 10 rebounds while playing elite-level defense.

Miller and the team were on a roll, and he was garnering attention from multiple different agents, scouts and more, but in a January conference matchup against Howard University, Miller suffered a season-ending ACL injury.

“If I was healthy, it’d be way different. I’d probably have way more opportunities, but being with the injury, it’s gotta be different,” he said.

“I’m not even that mad because now I’m more driven than ever. The chip [on his shoulder] was heavy but it got heavier. So now I’m just falling back in love with the grind,” Miller said. “What God got for me gonna happen regardless.”

The HBCU Disadvantages

But the grind for HBCU student-athletes in this day and age is different compared to their PWI and Power 5 school counterparts.

Although HBCUs are starting to get more recognition on a national stage, they still don’t get the same level of recruiting interest as other top schools.

The biggest high school recruit ever at an HBCU was five-star Makur Maker who played at Howard in 2020, but besides this, the high-star recruits are few and far between.

The reality may be they have fewer resources and less talented teams, but Burke nor Miller use that as an excuse for why they can’t make their dreams a reality.

“Life not fair. It’s what you got to do with what you got. They got weights, we got weights. They just got more appealing weights,” Miller said. “We make the best of our opportunities, and we’re not crying and complaining about what we don’t got because that’s not going to help us.”

Burke agreed as well.

“I don’t feel like it’s too big of a difference. No matter what level you’re on you gotta be able to win, and you gotta use the same skills to win. If you’re at a high major or low major, it all requires the same thing,” Burke said.

Burke mentioned how experienced the coaching at Morgan was too. Starting with head coach Kevin Broadus, who won a championship head coaching at Binghampton and coached at Georgetown when they went to Final Fours, and they have coaches with NCAA Tournament experience and even NBA playing experience.

These coaches and staff do more than just prepare them for potential basketball careers, they are preparing them for life on and off the court.

Academics & Life Beyond Basketball

“[Coach Broadus] always emphasizes, ‘It’s a real world out there.’ So make sure you have those skills to be successful other than learning how to put the ball in the basket,” Burke said.

Collegiate athletes are students first, and regardless of whether they go major pro or pro at all, they still have to worry about life after basketball.

Isaiah Burke majors in Multi-platform Production and uses his production skills to create YouTube videos as well as make high-quality music content under the name “Burkes” and is known as “Well Connected.”

Malik Miller is pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering and was an Honors student even before he came to Morgan. Even with his injury, he’s never stopped taking his education seriously throughout his college career.

Morgan State has one of the highest athletic department GPAs in the country, so the academic advisors there play a big role in athletes’ knowing the importance of their education while still pursuing their goals.

“We like to support goals and dreams, but also still finding ways to kinda keep things in reality and keep things in perspective,” Academic Advisor Alex Parker said. “Having a degree is always beneficial.”

She said although these athletes may make it pro or have other opportunities, they still never know what’s going to happen.

“Education is always a safe space,” Parker said. “I think the big thing is they’ve got their degree in their back pocket, so they’ll always have something to fall back onto.”

Burke and Miller both said it’s hard to balance their rigorous on and off-the-court schedules, but that actually has helped them be prepared for any life scenario post-graduation.

Terrence Lollie, senior associate athletic director and academic advisor, spoke about the difficulty of their schedules.

“You can start at 6am and not stop until 7, 8, 9pm. So you got 12 to 13-hour days,” Lollie said. “We call them full-time employees so to speak. They’re spending 30-40 hours on their academics and 30-40 hours on their athletics.”

It’s hard to balance everything, but it’s hard to make it to the league too, especially at an HBCU.

The NBA knows this, and that’s why these HBCU showcases are more about providing off-the-court opportunities. The Morgan student-athletes were invited to the NBA offices for just that and went to other events as well.

“We went to the Invesco QQQ offices and had a panel with Grant Hill and Taylor Rooks and a gentlemen from Morgan Stanley and really were able to get financial literacy training.”

The on and off-court exposure helps give athletes attention to get Name Image Likeness deals, but usually, HBCU student-athletes have to get them by themselves

Miller emailed over 100 different companies his resume to get NIL deals with Under Armour, Toyota and most recently, reathlete, as he recovers from his injury.

“I hope all HBCU athletes do that more and don’t rely on people to help you and teach you how to do it. Just understanding that ‘Your Self. Your Brand,’” Miller said.

“The work ethic you have always wins.”

Neither Malik or Burke are set to declare for the NBA draft this year, but both have been able to garner much more attention than they would have without the increase in HBCU exposure.

The NBA and these athletes are trailblazing their own paths step by step.

It’s only a matter of time before the talent matches the growing exposure of these historical institutions, and there may soon be more than one HBCU player in the NBA.