2025 NBA Mock Draft: Gonzaga’s Michael Ajayi among top 50 prospects on ESPN’s big board

Bulldogs senior forward was ranked No. 49 on ESPN’s latest mock draft

Gonzaga senior Michael Ajayi. / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford

This summer, a mock of the 2025 NBA Draft from ESPN projected Gonzaga men’s basketball forward Michael Ajayi would land somewhere in the early second-round range. While it's too early to tell how that forecast will hold over the seven months leading up to draft day, it appears the senior forward's stock has taken but a slight dip to start the 2024-25 season.

The 6-foot-7 wing had made a name for himself at the NBA Draft Combine this past May, in addition to leading the West Coast Conference in scoring (17.2 points) at Pepperdine in his first year of Division-I basketball. Ajayi has come off the bench through the first two games of his senior season, though his tenacity on the boards and intensity on defense stood out in the Bulldogs’ wins over Baylor and Arizona State.

An updated ESPN mock draft released earlier this week had Ajayi as the No. 49-ranked prospect in the expected draft class, down 13 spots from where he was in the summer mock (No. 36). Ajayi was right in front of former Gonzaga and current Wake Forest guard, Hunter Sallis, who like Ajayi returned to school for in his senior season after testing the draft waters in the spring. No other current or former Gonzaga player was listed on ESPN’s big board.

Ajayi is fifth on the team in points (9.0 per game) but leads far and away in the rebounding department. In 51 minutes this season, he’s ripped down 20 rebounds and has plenty more bruises and bumps to show for how he’s attacked the glass relentlessly. Ajayi helped spark the Bulldogs with his defensive effort in their win over the Sun Devils, finishing with 12 rebounds, three steals and one block in 29 minutes.

“He was great,” Few said of Ajayi after the game. “I mean think about that run in the first half, we were kind of in a little lull when he got in there and just did what Mike does, man, he just plays with just great energy and he just assumes every ball is his once they hit the rim and he goes flying in there. 

The projected No. 1 pick in ESPN’s latest mock is unsurprisingly Duke’s Cooper Flagg. The freshman phenom lived up to the hype in his debut on the national scene, as he finished with 26 points and 12 rebounds in the Blue Devils’ loss to Kentucky in the Champions Classic on Tuesday. The 17-year-old committed a pair of turnovers late in a close game, a sign of his maturity more than anything else against a more experienced Wildcats team.

Flagg has seemingly been the consensus top pick since he graduated from Montverde Academy, but he’s far from the only one-and-done prospect projected to go high in the draft this summer. In fact, of the top 15 prospects on ESPN’s big board, only one (South Carolina’s Collin Murray-Boyles) isn’t a freshman in college or a foreign prospect. That includes Baylor’s V.J. Edgecombe (No. 4), who the Zags faced in the season opener, and UConn’s Liam McNeely, a former top 10 high school recruit who Gonzaga will get to face on Dec. 14 at Madison Square Garden.

The Bulldogs also go up against Alex Karaban (No. 27) when they face the Huskies in New York City, as well as UCLA’s Kobe Johnson (No. 55) and Kentucky’s Kobe Brea (No. 57). Three players from Arizona (Carter Bryant, Motiejus Krivas and KJ Lewis) and Indiana’s Mackenzie Mgbako (No. 53) were also featured among the 59 prospects who were ranked. Gonzaga could see either or both the Hoosiers and Wildcats at the Battle 4 Atlantis event.

MORE GONZAGA NEWS & ANALYSIS

• What Mark Few said after Gonzaga's win over Arizona State

• Gonzaga’s Khalif Battle brings the house down with huge dunk vs. Arizona State

• Ryan Nembhard thriving as Gonzaga’s point guard: ‘He is amazing’

• Gonzaga lays claim to best home-court advantage in college basketball

• Highlights from Gonzaga's win over Arizona State
  

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Continue to follow our Gonzaga coverage on social media by liking us on Facebook and following us on Instagram and Twitter.