According to ESPN, the list of players taken No. 1 overall in the NBA draft is short and the list of colleges that produced those top picks is even smaller. The draft’s history dates back to 1947, and a handful of programs account for multiple first-overall selections.
Duke leads all schools with six No. 1 picks: Art Heyman (1963), Elton Brand (1999), Kyrie Irving (2011), Zion Williamson (2019), Paolo Banchero (2022) and Cooper Flagg (2025). ESPN notes those Duke No. 1s combined for three NBA Rookie of the Year awards and 13 All-Star selections; five earned All-Rookie first-team honors, and Irving is the only one to win an NBA championship.
Kentucky ranks next with three top picks: John Wall (2010), Anthony Davis (2012) and Karl-Anthony Towns (2015). All three made the NBA All-Rookie first team, Towns was named the 2015-16 NBA Rookie of the Year, and Davis captured an NBA title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020, according to ESPN.
Sixteen schools are tied with two No. 1 overall selections. Examples include Cincinnati (Oscar Robertson, 1960; Kenyon Martin, 2000), Georgetown (Patrick Ewing, 1985; Allen Iverson, 1996), Houston (Elvin Hayes, 1968; Hakeem Olajuwon, 1984), LSU (Shaquille O’Neal, 1992; Ben Simmons, 2016), UCLA (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1969; Bill Walton, 1974) and Kansas (Danny Manning, 1988; Andrew Wiggins, 2014).
Thirty-one schools have produced a single No. 1 pick. Notable one-time top picks listed by ESPN include Arizona (Deandre Ayton, 2018), Memphis (Derrick Rose, 2008), Michigan State (Earvin “Magic” Johnson, 1979), Wake Forest (Tim Duncan, 1997) and Navy (David Robinson, 1987), among others.
ESPN maintains a hub page for breaking NBA news, stats and transactions that includes this historical listing of No. 1 draft picks and the colleges that produced them.
