Pennsylvania basketball: Ivy League’s Player of the Year Jordan Dingle declares for NBA Draft, retains eligibility

One of the best young basketball prospects around, Jordan Dingle, has reportedly declared he will enter the 2023 NBA Draft in June, although still maintaining his college eligibility.

First reported by CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein, the young star just played his third season for Penn State University, averaging 23.4 points per match in the 2022/23 campaign. This makes him the nation’s leading scorer and it hasn’t gone unnoticed as he’s earned plenty of awards these past couple of months.

BIG 5⃣ AWARDS TIME!

We have some guys collecting hardware on Monday night, starting with JORDAN who is this year's Big 5 Player of the Year! He's the eighth player in program history so honored, first since Zack Rosen in 2011-12.#Whānau | #FightOnPenn 🔴🔵🏀 pic.twitter.com/CoPOT5EFWI

— Penn Men's Basketball (@PennMBB) April 4, 2023

Not only was he named the Ivy League’s Player of the Year after his tournament under coach Steve Donahue at Penn, he’s also just won this year’s Big 5 Player of the Year. Dingle becomes only the eighth player in program history to be honored, first since Zack Rosen in 2011/12.

As for the Ivy League hardware, the young star brought the trophy to Penn State for just the 18th time in its history, after he took his team to the third place of this year’s college tournament.

Dingle has always been a strong shooter, as ever since his freshman year in college basketball, the guard averaged 13.5 points per contest in Pennsylvania in 2019/20. Due to the pandemic, the Ivy League did not compete the next season, but he returned the following year averaging 20.9 points.

One of his best performances of the past campaign came at the beginning of the year, when Dingle dropped 33 points to beat Columbia. Take a look at some of his best moments from that Penn State victory:

Due to the pandemic’s delay, Dingle still has two more years of eligibility

Because of the the extra year every college basketball player has from the COVID-19 year, Dingle still has two more years of eligibility. If the player is able to maintain this stance while entering the 2023 NBA Draft in June, then he should have no problem returning home to Pennsylvania next season.

Depending on the what feedback Dingle recieves from the NBA while entering the draft, the player might decide not to return to college basketball. Even so, it will be interesting to see if the guard ever enters the transfer portal to try and make a move to a stronger conference.

But for now, we can just wait and see what the NBA will think of 22-year-old Dingle, considering his outstanding talent for scoring. However, if he’s to return to college basketball, he should use his new learned asessmentís to improve on new set of skills needed to grow professionally.

Penn State coach Steve Donahue expects his leading scorer to be back for the following campaign, as he would have a huge void to fill in his roster if Dingle was to leave.