Jalen Moore to Remove Name from NBA Draft

Utah State [University] senior wing Jalen Moore announced on Thursday [May 19, 2016] that he will remove his name from the upcoming NBA Draft and will return for his final season in Logan during the 2016-17 season.

“It was a great experience to get some feedback in this whole process,” Moore said. “I was able to work out in some places and played against some good players from good conferences. I had a lingering back issue that I wanted to clear up and wanted to come back and focus on being a better leader.”

Moore worked out with three NBA teams, including the Utah Jazz, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Memphis Grizzlies, and had interest from five more: the Houston Rockets, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs and Brooklyn Nets. The workouts also included competition against players from Texas A&M, Northern Iowa, Kentucky, Iona, Michigan State and UConn.

“The pre-draft process is nothing but a positive experience and gives these players great exposure and is something that can only help them,” Utah State head men’s basketball coach Tim Duryea said. “We as coaches can talk about an athlete’s ability, intangibles and intelligence, but in these workouts, teams are able to see firsthand all of those positive things.

“It really gave Jalen a road map of where to improve,” he continued. “But, it also helps us as coaches to help him advance in those areas as we are working on our summer programs and workouts.”

Moore has led the Aggies in scoring and rebounding each of the past two seasons, earning a pair of all-conference honors in the process. Last season, Moore averaged 15.2 points as he surpassed 1,000 points in his career, finishing the year with 1,119, while adding a team-best 6.0 rebounds per game. As a sophomore, Moore led the team with 15.2 points and 6.7 rebounds per game and was one of only four players in the Mountain West to be ranked in the top-10 of the league in both statistics.

Moore will be one of eight anticipated players coming back for the Aggies in 2016-17 and will be joined by seven newcomers.

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