One note: In this case, all people polled were Notre Dame alumni. As Notre Dame basketball is in the Big East, this will tend to skew the results for players from that conference.
For each of our pollster's names, a 1 indicates that that person has heard of the player. A 0 means they have never heard of the player.
For the Round, -1 indicates the player later withdrew from the draft. 0 means they remained draft eligible but went undrafted.
| Player Year Position School | Dave | Ellen | Mike | Kanka | Total | Round | Pick | Over-all |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Acker Junior Guard Pepperdine | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 30 | 60 |
| Hassan Adams Junior Guard Arizona | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Andray Blatche Senior Center South Kent (Ct.) Prep School | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 19 | 49 |
| Kelenna Azubuike Junior Guard-Forward Kentucky | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Andrew Bogut Sophomore Center Utah | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Brandon Bowman Junior Forward Georgetown | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Dee Brown Junior Guard Illinois | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Ike Diogu Junior Forward Arizona State | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 9 |
| Monta Ellis Senior Guard Lanier (Miss.) HS | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 40 |
| Raymond Felton Junior Guard North Carolina | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| Torin Francis Junior Guard Notre Dame | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Francisco Garcia Junior Guard Louisville | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 23 | 23 |
| Gerald Green Senior Guard Houston Gulf Shores Academy | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 18 |
| Mike Hall Junior Forward George Washington | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Chris Hernandez Junior Guard Stanford | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Jarrett Jack Junior Guard Georgia Tech | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 22 | 22 |
| Dwayne Jones Junior Center St. Joseph's | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Linus Kleiza Sophomore Forward Missouri | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 27 | 27 |
| Carl Krauser Junior Guard Pittsburgh | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Sean May Junior Center North Carolina | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 13 | 13 |
| Rashad McCants Junior Guard-Forward North Carolina | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 14 | 14 |
| Pops Mensah-Bonsu Junior Forward George Washington | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| J.R. Morris Junior Forward Seton Hall | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| T.J. Parker Junior Guard Northwestern | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Chris Paul Sophomore Guard Wake Forest | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| Kevin Pittsnogle Junior Center West Virginia | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Anthony Roberson Junior Guard Florida | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nate Robinson Junior Guard Washington | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 21 | 21 |
| Chris Rogers Junior Guard Arizona | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Chris Taft Sophomore Center Pittsburgh | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 12 | 42 |
| Charlie Villanueva Sophomore Forward Connecticut | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 7 |
| Von Wafer Sophomore Guard Florida State | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 9 | 39 |
| Matt Walsh Junior Guard Florida | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Martell Webster Senior Forward Seattle Prep (Wash.) HS | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 6 |
| Deron Williams Junior Guard Illinois | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Eric Williams Junior Center Wake Forest | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Marvin Williams Freshman Forward North Carolina | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Shawne Williams Senior Forward Laurinburg (NC) Institute | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| Louis Williams Senior Guard South Gwinnett (GA) HS | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 15 | 45 |
| Kennedy Winston Junior Forward Alabama | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Antoine Wright Junior Guard-Forward Texas A&M | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 15 |
| Bracey Wright Junior Guard Indiana | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 17 | 47 |
For those of you who like pretty pictures, here's a chart of the overall pick of a drafted underclassmen versus the number of people who have heard of that player. Seniors are not included in the chart as they were not part of this poll. There's no Bell Curve to this chart, at least after one year, so I will let you draw your own conclusions. You can see that only two first rounders were unheard of (junior Antoine Wright of Texas A&M and sophomore Linus Kleiza of Missouri), while a majority of the second rounders were unheard of.
Finally, here's a breakdown of the average number of "Heard of Hims" for certain categories of players:
| Category | Total Heard of Hims | Players | Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Withdrawn | 30 | 14 | 2.14 |
| Undrafted | 9 | 5 | 1.80 |
| Round 1 | 38 | 16 | 2.38 |
| Round 2 | 7 | 7 | 1 |
| Drafted (Combined) | 45 | 23 | 1.96 |
What does this tell us? Well, we knew quite a few of the players who withdrew, but there were a large number of Big East players on that list. On average, the first rounders were familiar to more than half of the pollsters. Logically, if you're considering leaving early, you would want a majority of people to have heard of you. I'm going to call the rest of the data inconclusive for now, largely because the numbers for the undrafted players were so much higher than the numbers of the round 2 draftees.
Conclusions? Well, as the baseball statheads like to say, this was too small of a sample set. This is only year 1, so we'll need more data under our belts before we can start making predictions. It is fairly safe to say, though, that you should make sure a majority of people have even heard of you before you consider leaving early to go pro.
