UPDATE, original story of Noah Vonleh posted on March 16th:
Indiana forward Noah Vonleh is heading to the NBA rather than return for his sophomore season in Bloomington. I told you this was coming after the Illini knocked the Hoosiers out of the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. I told you that IU had way too many bad losses to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to merit an NIT berth.
The Hoosiers are way too accomplished a program for the CBI, so I knew the Hoosiers, and therefore Noah Vonleh’s, season was done.
After being left out of the consolation tournament, Crean issued a statement through the school expressing disappointment that Indiana’s season is over. Crean finished his four-sentence statement with the words “See you next year.”
The 6-foot-10 Vonleh is projected as a lottery pick, currently slotted 6th in our NBA Mock Draft, the most accurate of all NBA mock drafts two out of the past three years.
Vonleh was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year, averaging 11.3 points and 9.0 rebounds per game. But he’s a project pick.
One NBA general manager told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo, “He’ll spend a lot of time in the D-League next year.”
Noah Vonleh also hasn’t scored in double digits in over a month. So he didn’t exactly finish the season strong. Crean was asked about this at the Big Ten Tournament:
“The injury has definitely been there,” Crean said.
“He was very limited in practice this week. I think you can see that in his energy at times in the game. We’ve really had to hold him back in the practices. And it’s part of it.”
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