Cooper Flagg entered the college basketball season as the odds-on favorite to go first overall in the 2025 NBA Draft, but he officially has a challenger in Dylan Harper.
The Rutgers guard made yet another splash on Saturday with a buzzer-beating, 3-point winner to cap off a 24-point performance against Seton Hall in a 66-63 win. With 6.4 seconds remaining, Harper received the in-bounds pass, took the ball all the way up court and deked his defender enough to get a clean look at the basket.
The play was familiar to anyone who watched Harper's brother, Ron Harper Jr., play for Rutgers three years ago, when he was a second-team All-Big Ten selection. The older Harper made a similar shot to down No. 1 Purdue
What differentiates Dylan's shot is that it is part of a meaningful conversation about who goes first in the NBA Draft.
Harper was on plenty of radars at the beginning of the season as Rivals' No. 3 recruit of the Class of 2024, and he has so far exceeded all expectations. He entered Saturday leading all Power 4 players in scoring with 23.4 point per game, along with 5.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game.
Against Seton Hall, he took over in the second half, scoring 18 points in a back-and-forth thriller. Fellow top-3 recruit Ace Bailey also had 21 points and seven rebounds, combining with Harper to account for 68.2% of the Scarlet Knights' scoring.
Notably, Harper also shot 4-of-7 from 3-point range, continuing to improve what had been his weak spot in the early stages of the season. In the first seven games of 2024-25, Harper shot 8-of-29 from deep (27.6%). In the four games since, he is 12-of-26 (46.2%).
Combo guards who are 6-foot-6 and can score anywhere tend to do well in the NBA, though that set of skills might not be enough overcome Flagg's promise. Through 10 games with Duke, the 17-year-old has looked like the kind of do-everything big man the NBA also covets, and his youth makes him a very strong bet to improve even more as he moves close to drinking age.
The best that could be said about Harper is that he's pushed the conversation about the top pick from a Flagg slam dunk into an actual debate. And barring disaster, he's set to pass James Bailey, selected sixth overall in 1979, as the earliest NBA Draft pick in Rutgers history.