The latest edition of the MLS draft is set for January 11, where stars of the 2018 college season hope to hear their name called.

For those following Major League Soccer closely, the draft is hardly the main source of talent acquisition. Whether it's homegrown signings, allocation money or countless other player movement mechanisms, there are plenty of other more important roster-building options out there. As an example, only 22 of the 81 selections in the 2018 draft saw minutes in MLS this past season. The Rookie of the Year, Corey Baird, was a college players signed to a Homegrown deal after a four-year career at Stanford.

That aside, TopDrawerSoccer will bring coverage of the top prospects available ahead of the draft. Below is a look at the first version of the Top 50 Big Board, with a seven-player Generation adidas class projected (Noted with an *).

Rank	Player	School
1	M Siad Haji*	VCU
2	M Brad Dunwell	Wake Forest
3	F Tajon Buchanan*	Syracuse
4	M Sergio Rivas	Seattle
5	M Frankie Amaya*	UCLA
6	D Callum Montgomery	Charlotte
7	F Mohammed Kamara*	UCLA
8	F Griffin Dorsey*	Indiana
9	F JJ Williams*	Kentucky
10	M/F Camden Riley	Pacific
11	D/M Abdi Mohamed	Akron
12	F Andre Shinyashiki	Denver
13	F Santiago Patino	Florida International
14	M Amar Sejdic	Maryland
15	D Akeem Ward	Creighton
16	GK Dayne St. Clair*	Maryland
17	M/F Tucker Bone	Air Force
18	D Logan Gdula	Wake Forest
19	D Kamal Miller	Syracuse
20	D Marcello Borges	Michigan
21	M Andrew Samuels	Maryland
22	D Wouter Verstraaten	Pacific
23	D Jacob Hauser-Ramsey	Connecticut
24	M/F Amir Bashti	Stanford
25	M Geoffrey Dee	Louisville
26	M Joey Piatczyc	West Virginia
27	M Tommy McCabe	Notre Dame
28	F Abdou Mbacke Thiam	Connecticut
29	M Joel Rydstrand	Creighton
30	D Rece Buckmaster	Indiana
31	GK Jimmy Hague	Michigan State
32	M Anderson Asiedu	UCLA
33	GK Rashid Nuhu	Fordham
34	D Quentin Pearson	Washington
35	M Jeremiah Gutjahr	Indiana
36	F Sebastian Elney	Maryland
37	M Emil Cuello	SMU
38	D Chase Gasper	Maryland
39	D Alex Comsia	North Carolina
40	M Janos Loebe	Fordham
41	F Ryan Sierakowski	Michigan State
42	M Francesco Moore	Indiana
43	D Prosper Figbe	Virginia
44	M Jakov Basic	Massachusetts-Lowell
45	D Dylan Greenberg	Connecticut
46	D Roy Boateng	UC Davis
47	F DeJuan Jones	Michigan State
48	F Shinya Kadono	California
49	M Javi Perez	Pittsburgh
50	F Don Tchilao	Oregon State