{"id":651408,"date":"2026-05-19T01:20:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651408\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T01:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:20:24","slug":"john-mobley-jr-withdraws-from-nba-draft-clearing-return-to-ohio-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651408\/","title":{"rendered":"John Mobley Jr. withdraws from NBA draft, clearing return to Ohio State"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Mobley Jr. will be back with Ohio State<\/a> men’s basketball in 2026-27.<\/p>\n

After finishing as the Buckeyes<\/a>‘ second-leading scorer as a sophomore, Mobley announced that he was entering his name<\/a> into the NBA draft process while retaining his collegiate eligibility. If he were to play college basketball next season, Mobley said, it would be<\/a> with OSU.<\/p>\n

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On May 18, Mobley announced that he would be withdrawing his name from the draft by posting a video to Instagram.<\/p>\n

\"Ohio<\/p>\n

Ohio State’s John Mobley averaged 15.7 points, 2.8 assists and 2.4 turnovers while starting 31 games in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

Collegiate players can declare for the draft, get NBA feedback on their potential stock and opt to return to school without impacting their eligibility.<\/p>\n

Mobley is known to have worked out for Memphis and Boston but did not receive an invitation to either the NBA combine or the G League equivalent.<\/p>\n

At Ohio State, Mobley is expected to be a featured player for coach Jake Diebler, so his return was prioritized<\/a>. As a sophomore, Mobley averaged 15.7 points, 2.8 assists and 2.4 turnovers while starting 31 games. He shot 41.1% (97 for 236) from 3-point range, the third-best shooting percentage in the Big Ten. Mobley missed three midseason games after an injury<\/a> to his right pinky finger\/hand forced him to have surgery, but he finished playing the final seven games and scored in double figures in all seven<\/p>\n

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He was voted honorable mention All-Big Ten by the media.<\/p>\n

In two seasons at Ohio State, Mobley has averaged 14.3 points, 2.5 assists and 2.0 rebounds while shooting 39.9% from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

Ohio State men’s basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @cdadamjardy.bsky.social<\/a> or on Twitter at @AdamJardy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: After testing NBA draft stock, John Mobley Jr. returning to Ohio State<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Mobley Jr. will be back with Ohio State men’s basketball in 2026-27. After finishing as the Buckeyes‘…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[50861,280955,280954,355,6339,99],"class_list":["post-651408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-buckeyes","tag-collegiate-eligibility","tag-john-mobley","tag-nba","tag-ohio-state","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}