Syracuse Basketball: New mock draft has Elijah Hughes going in 1st round

The 2020 NBA Draft is fast approaching, and former Syracuse basketball wing Elijah Hughes is going to get selected.

At this point, it’s really a question of where former Syracuse basketball star Elijah Hughes is chosen in the upcoming NBA Draft, not if he is going to get picked.

Nothing is ever a guarantee until draft night, I concede that, however, all signs seem to indicate that the 6-foot-6 Hughes will hear his name called. Analysts and recent mock drafts suggest that Hughes is likely to get selected in either the late first round or in the early/middle part of the second round.

To that end, NBA Draft analyst and former pro agent Matt Babcock of Babcock Hoops has updated his mock-draft board, with Hughes going at No. 23 in the first round to the Utah Jazz.

The Orange has some recent history with Utah. During the 2017 NBA Draft, the Jazz picked former ‘Cuse player Tyler Lydon, a power forward, with the No. 24 selection in the first round, although Utah then traded him to the Denver Nuggets in a draft-night deal.

The 2020 NBA Draft, by the way, is slated to occur on Wednesday, Nov. 18, and will air on ESPN, although NBA officials have said that the “date remains subject to change as circumstances warrant” given the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to an NBA press release from mid-September.

Former Syracuse basketball player Elijah Hughes is projected as a first-round selection in a new mock NBA Draft.

Hughes left the Orange after his redshirt junior campaign, one in which he led the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring during the 2019-20 stanza.

A native of Beacon, N.Y., Hughes averaged 19.0 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.4 assists per contest a stanza ago, while connecting on 42.6 percent from the field, 34.1 percent from beyond the arc, and 81.3 percent from the charity stripe.

Although ‘Cuse opponents would often put their premier defender on Hughes, a shooting guard/small forward, he still managed to produce one of the best all-around terms on the Hill for the Syracuse basketball program in recent memory.

The Jazz, we should note, is a solid NBA team. During the 2020 playoffs, in which the Los Angeles Lakers captured the league’s championship, Utah fell in a first-round series that went seven games to Denver. The Jazz had earned the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference after going 44-28 in the regular season.