North Carolina guard Cormac Ryan withdraws from 2023 NBA Draft

North Carolina guard Cormac Ryan will withdraw from the 2023 NBA Draft and will return to college, according to Jon Rothstein. Ryan transferred to North Carolina from Notre Dame as a graduate transfer this offseason.

After spending the 2018-19 season at Stanford, Ryan transferred to Notre Dame. He featured for the Irish for three seasons after a redshirt year. He averaged 12.3 points per game while starting all 32 games he played in 2022-23 for Notre Dame. And there aren’t many college basketball players with 116 career games played going into a season.

He’ll bring a veteran presence and some consistent scoring ability to a North Carolina team that fell well short of might expectations a season ago. Things have been tempered in Chapel Hill, and Ryan can play a role in raising the ceiling back up.

Ryan was one of the top recruits in the 2018 signing class, coming out of Milton (N.Y.) Academy. According to the On3 Industry Ranking, he was the No. 62 overall prospect and the No. 10 shooting guard, earning a four-star rating.

More on the 2023 NBA Draft

The 2023 NBA Draft is set to take place on Thursday, June 22, 2023, in Brooklyn at Barclays Center. Round 1 of the draft will be announced by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, while Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum is expected to handle the second round of picks.

To be eligible for the NBA Draft, players must be at least 19 years in age during the calendar year that the draft is held and at least one NBA season from their high school graduation date, or the date that would have been if they are not graduated. It is not required that player spend that one year playing college basketball, though. Players can play in either college, abroad, or the G League Ignite if they choose so.

While this is a significant change from what the rules once were, players are eligible to enter their names into the NBA Draft pool and explore their options by hiring an agent to go through the process, while still keeping their college eligibility. The deadline to make that move is on April 23 beginning at 11:59 p.m. ET. Players have until May 31 at 5 p.m. ET to withdraw their name from the pool and return to college.

The NBA Draft Lottery will be held on May 16, which is also the start of the NBA Conference Finals.