Saint Louis Center Declares for NBA Draft

[Murph]

Junior center Ian Vouyoukas, who averaged 13.9 points and 7.4 rebounds for Saint Louis last season, is making himself eligible for the NBA draft.

Vouyoukas left open the possibility of a return for his senior season by not hiring an agent. Vouyoukas, who is from Athens, Greece, has until June 18 to remove his name from the draft list.

"Ian's dream, and that of virtually every player in college basketball, is to one day play in the NBA," Billikens coach Brad Soderberg said Tuesday. "We fully support Ian's desire to be a professional and are happy there is a mechanism that allows him to gauge his draft status."

After a 9-21 season in 2004-05, Saint Louis improved last season to 16-13 overall and 10-6 in its first season in the Atlantic 10 Conference, tying for third place. The 2005-06 season was also a breakout for the 6-foot-10 Vouyoukas, who set a team record with 55 blocks.

"After a solid season this year, I would like to see where I stand as a player and realistically judge my ability in relation to the NBA draft," Vouyoukas said.

Vouyoukas has not been invited to the NBA's pre-draft camp in June in Orlando, Fla., where top prospects are evaluated by coaches, general managers, scouts and front office personnel. The Billikens said Vouyoukas anticipates working out for individual teams.


Will he go higher than OB.....????

[tornado]

Very, very doubtful, unless he knocks people's socks off during private workouts or camps.

This kid is by no means an unknown, and like a lot of the big European players, has been on the radar screen of the NBA scouts for a long time. I am sure they'd love for him to develop into a powerful big man, but it definitely hasn't happened yet.
Clearly his intent is to go in the draft this year because of the dearth of big men and to stay out of the 2007 draft which should be much stronger in big men.
One thing the scouts will see is that he had more turnovers than assists, steals, and 3-pointers put together. And even though his numbers aren't bad, he is only 18th in his conference in scoring, 15th in rebounding, and not even listed among the leaders in FG% & other stats, despite leading the league in minutes played. (Conference stats).
The Atlantic-10 was not among the top 10 conferences in RPI either, and only one team in the conference finished with fewer than 10 losses.

As we speak, Vouyoukas was pegged as the 49th pick in the 2007 draft (the 19th pick in the 2nd round more than a year from now.)
Unlike POB, this kid did not have stellar play in the post season, nor did he really impress that much in the A-10 this past year.

http://nbadraft.net/index.asp?content=mock2007

If forced to bet on this one, I'd say it is marginal that any NBA team would even take the kid with a 2nd round pick this season.