Portsmouth Invitational Tournament 2025: Full list of invitees ft. St. John's Deivon Smith

NCAA Basketball: NCAA Tournament Second Round-Arkansas at St. Johns - Source: Imagn

The Portsmouth Invitational Tournament is held every year as a last-chance opportunity for seniors to show their skills to the NBA and other pro scouts. The event will have 12 games starting on Wednesday. The tournament will take place over four days until the final game is played on Apr. 19. It will be held at Churchland High School in Portsmouth, Virginia.

This event has been happening since 1953 and allows players to showcase their talents to scouts in a new environment. The tournament is split into eight teams of eight players for a 12-game tournament.

With the event only a few days away, many invitees have been announced, including big names like St. John's Deivon Smith. Here is a list of invitees for the 2025 Portsmouth Invitational Tournament.

Full list of invites for the 2025 Portsmouth Invitational Tournament

In total, 64 players will participate in the 2025 Portsmouth Invitational. However, only 24 have been made public ahead of the event.

Nolan Hickman, Gonzaga
Nelly Junior Joseph, New Mexico
John Poulakidas, Yale
Bez Mbeng, Yale
Kadin Shedrick, Texas
Deivon Smith, St. John’s
Julian Reese, Maryland
Darius Johnson, UCF
Erik Reynolds II, St.Joseph’s
Jamhyl Telfort, Butler
Sean Pedulla, Ole Miss
David Joplin, Marquette
Tyson Degenhart, Boise State
Viktor Lakhin, Clemson
Ian Schieffelin, Clemson
Chase Hunter, Clemson
Nate Santos, Dayton
Wade Taylor IV, Texas A&M
Kobe Johnson, UCLA
Camryn Carter, LSU
Jaemyn Brakefield, Ole Miss
Wooga Poplar, Villanova
Max Shulga, VCU
Ace Baldwin Jr., Penn State

How often do Portsmouth Invitational Tournament players get selected in the NBA draft?

The Portsmouth Invitational Tournament is branded as a last-chance opportunity for college players to showcase their skills before the NBA draft. The tournament is exclusively for seniors but does not usually feature players in serious contention to be drafted. As a result, it is uncommon for players invited to this tournament to get picked by an NBA team.

The last time a Portsmouth Invitational Tournament invite got picked in the NBA draft was Tyrese Martin in 2022. The Golden State Warriors selected him with the 51st pick.

However, before that, the tournament had an impressive stretch of success. In 10 years, from 2009 to 2018, 29 players who attended this tournament were drafted by NBA teams. It will be interesting to see if the tournament returns to its success from the 2010s.

About the author

Alexander O'Reilly is a journalist at Sportskeeda from Kingston, Ontario with over seven years in the field at companies including SenShot, RVBlogger, Monarch Media, WordAgents, GSeC LLC, and IGC.

His favorite college team is Duke, and his favorite sporting memory was Duke winning March Madness in 2010. JJ Redick was Alex's favorite college player when he was young but more recently, Caleb Williams gets the nod. As the Chicago Bears are Alex's favorite NFL team, this was a perfect match.

Alex's proudest moment came when he was interviewed by a radio station in Ottawa on his opinion on recent moves by the Ottawa Senators, which gave him a confidence boost and the knowledge that he could succeed as a writer.

Aside from sports, Alex likes to spend his time playing games. He is also very passionate about running and strives to improve at the half and full marathon distances.

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Edited by Abhimanyu Gupta