10 schools, such as North Carolina and Arkansas, that fit great

The 2024 NBA Draft withdrawal deadline for college players to return for the 2024-25 season has come and gone. Players such as Arizona’s Caleb Love, Alabama’s Mark Sears, and Wake Forest’s Hunter Sallis elected to return to school with hopes of increasing their stock ahead of a loaded 2025 NBA Draft class.

Coleman Hawkins also decided to remove his name from the draft for the second consecutive offseason but currently has no home, as he entered the transfer portal when he simultaneously declared for the draft last month. The former Illinois star will be one of the most coveted players available because of the current market of stretch bigs. Hawkins is a versatile forward who has shown an ability to guard multiple positions. 

Hawkins should have plenty of suitors for his services, but adding him to any roster won’t be cheap. Washington transfer big man Great Osobor reportedly cashed in on a $2 million NIL payday that makes him (publicly) one of the top-paid players in the sport. Due to the lack of stretch big men on the market and the veteran presence Hawkins would provide for his final season of college basketball, it wouldn’t be surprising if he landed a similar NIL package.

Hawkins said publicly at the NBA Draft Combine earlier this month that he doesn’t want to play in the Big Ten or the Big East — which eliminates a handful of schools that would benefit from having him on the roster. Hawkins has West Coast roots, as he starred at Napa (Calif.) Prolific Prep after transferring in from Antelope (Calif.) High School, located less than 30 minutes from the capital of California in Sacramento.

“I will never play in the Big Ten again, I wouldn’t play in the Big East,” Hawkins said at the combine earlier this month. “… I would go somewhere where I can enjoy a football game. Some schools have reached out, and some schools I’ve just been honest with them and I haven’t wasted their time, I just flat out told them that’s just not somewhere I would consider going.”

With those factors in play, here are 10 schools that make the most sense for Hawkins.