Tennessee guard Josh Richardson (1) celebrates after an NCAA college basketball game in the second round of the Southeastern Conference tournament against Vanderbilt, Thursday, March 12, 2015, in Nashville, Tenn. Tennessee won 67-61. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)VOLS IN THE DRAFT
Josh Richardson became the 46th NBA draft pick in the history of Tennessee's basketball program on Thursday night when the Miami Heat took him in the second round with the No. 40 overall pick. He's just the 10th Vol picked since the NBA went to a two-round draft in 1989. Here's a look at the previous nine draft picks from Tennessee. 2014 -- Jarnell Stokes: 35th by Utah (traded to Memphis). 2014 -- Jordan McRae: 58th by San Antonio (traded to Philadelphia). 2011 -- Tobias Harris: 19th by Charlotte (traded to Milwaukee). 2002 -- Marcus Haislip: 13th by Milwaukee. 2002 -- Vincent Yarbrough: 33rd by Denver 1996 -- Steve Hamer: 38th by Boston. 1993 -- Allan Houston: 11th by Detroit. 1989 -- Dyron Nix: 29th by Charlotte 1989 -- Doug Roth: 41st by Washington.
KNOXVILLE - Josh Richardson better have some sunscreen handy.
The former Tennessee guard realized one of his dreams Thursday night when the Miami Heat selected him with the 40th overall pick in the NBA draft.
Most projections had Richardson landing in the middle of the second round, but the Heat - one of the 16 teams for which Richardson worked out in the weeks leading up to the draft - nabbed him just 10 picks into the second round.
Richardson finished his Tennessee career ranked third in program history in games played (136), ninth in starts (110) and 10th in steals (147). The 6-foot-6 guard is 28th on the program's all-time scoring list (1,252 points) despite totaling just 97 points as a freshman. Richardson was a two-time SEC All-Defense selection.
Though he shared a spot on last season's All-SEC first team with four first-round picks (Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Bobby Portis and Jarell Martin), Richardson initially slipped through the cracks of the draft process.
He was not invited to the NBA draft combine in May, but his ability to impress teams with his personality and his performances in group and individual workouts allowed him to climb up draft boards.
Richardson worked out for more than half the league, and Memphis, San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Boston got him or wanted to get him back for another workout.
"He's been helped by the analytics revolution," ESPN draft analyst Chad Ford said during a teleconference Wednesday. "That's just part of the process. There's a lot of guys to keep track of, and the bigger names and the guys that were ranked highly out of high school, or guys that had early success are going to get the bulk of the focus.
"With some of these other players like a Josh Richardson (an) analytics team comes in and all of a sudden this name pops up, and maybe they've scouted him a little bit, but now they've got to take it seriously. They're going to go back, they've got to watch tape, they've got to look at him again. That's the process that's going on in late April and May and in June."
Richardson was part of coach Cuonzo Martin's first Tennessee recruiting class in 2011 and played just 16 minutes per game as a freshman. The Edmond, Okla., native started every game of his sophomore season. The former three-star recruit didn't truly blossom, though, until the end of his junior season, when Martin challenged him to take the game more seriously.
The results were impressive.
While cranking up his lock-down defensive skills, Richardson found his offense as the Vols made a late-season run to the NCAA tournament. In Tennessee's run to the Elite Eight, Richardson averaged better than 19 points and shot nearly 62 percent in four NCAA tournament games. He scored a career-high 26 points against Mercer in the round of 32.
Tennessee's roster situation his senior season prompted first-year coach Donnie Tyndall to play Richardson at point guard, and he handled the role well while leading an undermanned team in scoring (16 ppg), field-goal percentage (.461), free-throw percentage (.798), assists (3.6 apg), steals (2.1 spg) and minutes played (36.3).
The league's coaches and The Associated Press rewarded Richardson with an All-SEC first-team nod.
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.