Ohio State’s Keita Bates-Diop invited to NBA Combine

The reigning Big Ten Player of the Year, Ohio State’s Keita Bates-Diop, will be one of the 69 nice players participating in the NBA Combine later this month, according to Yahoo’s Shams Charania. The combine will emanate from Chicago May 16-20.

Along with Bates-Diop, some of the major names participating in this year’s pre-draft workouts will be Oklahoma’s Trae Young, Duke’s Marvin Bagley III, Texas’ Mohamed Bamba, Missouri’s Michael Porter Jr., and more.

SBNation’s Ricky O’Donnell currently has KBD slotted in as the 19th selection in June’s draft, going to the Atlanta Hawks in his last mock draft released earlier this week. The 6-foot-7 forward is coming off of a year where he surprisingly led the Buckeyes to a second-place B1G regular-season finish and an NCAA Tournament berth for the first time since 2015.

Bates-Diop averaged 19.8 points and 8.7 rebounds in his third full season on the floor for the Buckeyes en route to being named to the All-American second-team.

The NBA Draft lottery will take place on May 15— the day before the combine begins— and the draft itself will happen on June 21.