As the NBA regular season draws to a close, the NCAA postseason continues.<\/p>\n
March Madness has already featured a number of thrilling matchups as future NBA Draft picks battle for a chance to win the national championship. In the NBA, teams are making their final pushes ahead of the postseason and jockeying for position in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The Oklahoma City Thunder have won 11 consecutive contests, and sit three games ahead of the San Antonio Spurs for the top spot in the Western Conference. <\/p>\n
Despite holding the best record in the NBA, OKC also appears likely to secure two top 20 picks in the upcoming draft, coming from the Philadelphia 76ers and LA Clippers.<\/p>\n
In a recent projection from Jonathan Wasserman<\/a> at Bleacher Report, the Thunder added two collegiate prospects with the No. 15 and No. 16 picks.<\/p>\n At No. 15 overall, Wasserman paired Tennessee freshman Nate Ament with Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n Ament entered the 2025-26 campaign viewed as one of the class’ premier prospects, but has struggled at times with the Volunteers. Still, the former five-star recruit has shown plenty of upside and could easily develop into a talented player with more experience.<\/p>\n Ament is averaging 17 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, a steal and 2.3 turnovers per game while shooting 40.2% from the field and 32.8% from 3-point range. Listed at 6-foot-10 and more than 200 pounds, Ament has an intriguing skill set for a player of his size and stature.<\/p>\n With a solid handle and confidence from beyond the arc, Ament has the skill to play on the perimeter and the size to be a versatile option on both ends of the court. In addition to the aforementioned abilities, Ament’s skill as a playmaker could draw interest from Sam Presti and company.<\/p>\n In Tennessee’s most recent contest, Ament finished with 16 points, 4 rebounds, a steal, a block and two turnovers while shooting 4-of-11 from the field, 1-of-3 from beyond the arc and 7-of-8 from the free throw line to help the Volunteers reach the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n At No. 16 overall, Wasserman slotted Florida wing Thomas Haugh to the Thunder. <\/p>\n Like Ament, Haugh offers positonal versatility due to his size and stature. Listed at 6-foot-9 and 215 pounds, Haugh is a skilled perimeter player who saw his role expand as a junior.<\/p>\n After serving as an auxilliary piece of Florida’s national title run in 2025 alongside a trio of NBA Draft picks, Haugh became the Gators’ star in 2025-26. The former three-star recruit was averaging 17 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists, a steal, a block and 1.5 turnovers per game while shooting 46.5% from the field and 32.9% from 3-point range.<\/p>\n Haugh earned consensus All-American honors for his efforts and helped the Gators to the Round of 32, where Florida team lost to Iowa in a thrilling, back-and-forth contest.<\/p>\n Want to join the discussion? Like\u00a0Thunder on SI<\/a>\u00a0on Facebook and\u00a0follow us on Twitter<\/a>\u00a0to stay up to date on all the latest Thunder news. You can also\u00a0meet the team<\/a>\u00a0behind the coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the NBA regular season draws to a close, the NCAA postseason continues. March Madness has already featured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-555759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}