With the NBA season starting on Sunday, and with most college programs off this weekend, this is a perfect time to look at which college programs have produced the most pros. Using opening day rosters on NBA.com, the first table shows the number of alumni that hail from the schools in each conference. I also list the number of international players (without any US college experience) and the number of high school players that went straight to the pros. I also compare these numbers to opening day last season.

Players on Opening Day Rosters

Conference This Year Last Year ACC 61 56 Pac-12 50 48 International (with no US College) 48 59 Big East 46 54 SEC 45 40 Big 12 43 41 High School 31 31 Big 10 27 29 A10 13 11 CUSA 9 12 MWC 9 10 WAC 8 9 WCC 6 5 CAA 5 5 Sun Belt 4 5 Horizon 4 2 MVC 3 3 Southern 3 2 Other 14 14 Players per Team 14.3 14.5

A few notes:

- There was only one change in the “high school to pro” players on rosters from last year to this year. J.R. Smith is stuck over in China and Jeremy Tyler is on an opening day roster this season.

- The number of international players in the NBA has declined this off-season. I haven’t done a full investigation, but I suspect international players were more likely to sign with foreign clubs during the lockout.

- There were some conferences to gain from the decline in the number of international players. In particular, the ACC, SEC, and Big 12 now have more alumni in the NBA. The Big 12’s increase in alumni is impressive when you consider the league lost two teams this off-season. Of course, when you remember the league lost Colorado and Nebraska, maybe it is obvious why that didn’t matter much.

- The Southern Conference now has three players in the NBA. Charleston’s Andrew Goudelock (now playing for the Lakers) doesn’t have nearly the expectations of Davidson’s Stephen Curry or Western Carolina’s Kevin Martin, but he was a fabulous scorer in college.

- I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m shocked there aren’t more MAC players in the NBA. This league once generated players like Gary Trent and Wally Szczerbiak, but not anymore. The SWAC actually has more players in the NBA than the MAC right now at two to one.

- Overall, there were seven fewer players on opening day rosters this year, dropping the average opening day roster from 14.5 players to 14.3 players.

Here is a team by team look at the player’s former colleges:

Players on Opening Day Rosters

College Team This Year Last Year Duke 16 13 Kentucky 15 13 UCLA 15 14 Texas 13 10 Kansas 12 12 North Carolina 12 12 Connecticut 11 11 Florida 10 9 Arizona 10 10 Georgia Tech 7 7 Wake Forest 7 8 LSU 6 7 USC 6 5 Ohio St. 6 7 Stanford 5 6 Florida St. 5 4 Marquette 5 4 Syracuse 5 7 Purdue 5 3 Georgia 4 0 Washington 4 5 Oklahoma St. 4 4 Boston College 4 2 Maryland 4 4 Louisville 4 4 Memphis 4 7 Nevada 4 4 Alabama 3 4 Arkansas 3 3 Missouri 3 2 Georgetown 3 4 Notre Dame 3 3 Pittsburgh 3 3 Villanova 3 4 Indiana 3 3 Michigan 3 3 Michigan St. 3 6 Wisconsin 3 1 Xavier 3 4 UNLV 3 4 Gonzaga 3 2

Tennessee, Arizona St., California, Colorado, Utah, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Iowa St., Baylor, Kansas St., Miami (FL), NC State, Providence, Cincinnati, Illinois, UMass, St. Joe's, UTEP, New Mexico, Fresno St., VCU, Butler, Western Kentucky, and Creighton also each had two player on the opening rosters this year.

If you had to define college basketball’s most prestigious programs right now, having 10 players in the NBA seems like a nice cut-off. You’d miss Syracuse and a number of successful Big Ten programs, but the teams at the top of this list clearly have a ton of college basketball tradition.

Duke had a ridiculous 16 players on opening day NBA rosters this season. From the “wait he’s still playing in the NBA” Grant Hill to the newcomer Kyrie Irving, those 16 players are spread out between 13 different teams:

So for everyone that says Mike Krzyzewski has started recruiting 4-year college players and is ignoring NBA level talent, that is not completely true. Personally, I’d still take the all-Texas squad (because of Kevin Durant), but Kentucky has a ton of players who have superstar potential, and Connecticut might have the most balanced NBA team.