SNAQalicous - Nevada hit on some of the points that Knight made. Here are some other interesting ideas and tidbits. Some of this would have to be coordinated with the NBAPA. In the NFL, players have to be out of school two years I believe. Remember the Maurice Clarett situation? Baseball players who enroll in college are ineligible for the MLB draft (even if they were drafted already) until a certain amount of time. So the precedence is out there as a model. If the NCAA wanted to work unilaterally, they could tie this into their academic model. Currently if academic and graduation benchmarks are not met over a set amount of time (5 years I believe) then that sport, usually football and basketball, are penalized by loss of scholarships etc. IF the NCAA wanted to do this, they very well could and have the precedence to back them up. IMO, the NBA doesn't want to 'play ball' b/c they are currently getting a free farm system from the NCAA.
As for paying the players, that is a great idea on the surface, however, there are several reasons that this is not practical. The first being that the majority, something on the scale of over 90% of the NCAA athletic departments lose money. While the dollars look big as a whole, when broken down they are not all that big. Football and Men's Basketball (as well as women's @UT and UCONN) make the money that fuels and funds the other programs. Which leads to the second point. If you are going to pay the football players what are you going to do with the women's track team? Title IX anyone? And if you can find someone clever enough to get around Title IX, how much do you pay players? Does the second team punter make as much as the starting point guard? Can Alabama pay more than Idaho since they bring in more money? So while it appears to be a good idea, the NCAA would have to slap on some ski's for the slippery slope.
On the other hand, student athletes are eligible for need based grants, NCAA sanctioned part time jobs and student loans. Sort of like the rest of the student body. I can neither confirm nor deny that it is sort of cool to have your tuition room and board paid for along with 'free' (loaner) books, free tutors and 10K a year in college. And at the end of it all you walk away with a BS (insert joke), graduate degree and only 40K in school loan debt. And if you wanna go pro, cool, have a clause in your contract that the team you sign with will pay for you to finish school when your playing days are done.

Like I said, I don't really see that it's a problem, so I really see no need for a solution.

And since when was a BS a graduate degree? I think you meant "undergraduate" degree.

Sorry, forgot a comma. Geez, who made YOU grammar police :p
I am not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, anyone can go "pro" at any time in different fields. People can finish up Med school, law school etc early. You can start your own business whenever, sort of like those Gates and Jobs fellows. On the other hand, I love college basketball and would like to see players and teams be identified with one another. This would make coaches have to 'coach up' players thus elevating overall NCAA basketball from top to bottom. Imagine if the UK players had stayed in the system for 2 or 3 years?
The only problem I would have had was if the tournament was extended to 96 teams. Thankfully they didn't do that!

I love college hoops, too, and would love for players to stick it out. The thing is, their lives aren't about making me happy, and I have no right to ask them to hang out in college longer than they want to.
Nothing you do is going to keep John Wall in college more than one year. The only thing these proposed solutions would do is keep him from going to college in the first place, and I think you would rather have players like him for one year than none. I know I would.

I just don't see a problem.

The current state of collegiate recruiting is a mess.

Coaches will always go for the blue-chip recruits. Part of a coach/program's resume is how many players have moved on to the NBA.

In most cases, the teams that lose the 1 and done players take a few years to recover. You look at programs like UCLA & North Carolina reeling last year as a result of recent attrition to the NBA.

The one exception I can think of is Calipari, who always seems to land the big recruits year and year out. But he does so at the expense of questionable ethics and morals. His past 2 collegiate stops have been put on probation by the NCAA for illegal activities during his tenure. Calipari has been able to bag these recruits by allying himself with William Wesley, clearly the most powerful man not in the direct employment of a team, shoe company, etc.

You haven't been paying attention
 

For those that support the 2 year scholarship offer. There is another option for the school and player. It recently happened with Kentucky ( :eek: ), Terrance Jones just received an financial aid commitment from UK. This is not the same as an athletic Scholly. Jones has much more options than he would if it was an athletic offer. If Calipari leaves, Jones can go anywhere. If he gets hurt or homesick, he can leave and accept another offer without having to sit out a year.

He would still be 1 and done and there would be no impact on the scholarships a school has to offer. The offer also doesn't subject him to the same level of success in the classroom that is required of other "athletes." My understanding is that the NCAA requires 2.25 AND satisfactory progress toward a degree.

You are just creating a different loophole.

I just read an interesting article on the revocation of 4 year scholarships that are actually one year renewable scholarships. Many of the transfers to get more playing time are kids being pushed out by present coaches, incoming coaches, etc and they keep clammed up about what is really happening because the coach is giving them a glowing recommendation.

Here is the article

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the link apparently does work

Didn't Cal do this with the players who were waiting for him at Kentucky?

KY players were mentioned in the article as a group of 7.

Actually, I wouldn't. I would much rather see intercollegiate athletics return to being a recreational activity for real students who went to college for the education, not with the hope of becoming a professional athlete.

I believe that paid minor leagues should be formed or further developed for those individuals with professional athletics as their goal. Completely divorcing higher education from big-time athletics in our country would be wonderful. The best way to do that would be to remove most of the ability for it to generate money for the institutions. After all, if it didn't make them money, then they certainly wouldn't do it. That could be accomplished by banning amatuer athletics from television in this country.

Financial aid is an easy one to handle. Simply make it tied to academic performance. For example, if the student get less than a 3.0 in any semester, then the financial aid is lost. Not real hard.

Hmmmm.... now where have I seen that before.... was it in post #10 in this thread? ;)

That ship sailed over 50 years ago.

We already have what you're proposing. It is called D2, D3, and NAIA...and probably a majority of D1 for that matter.

While I understand your point, as the father of a college student, 3.0 is not THAT easy to attain and maintain, even if you're not a big time athlete! :o

And so much financial aid is not even tied to the university.

It should be pretty easy for the NCAA to regulate the loophole, however, by stating all athletes must meet the same academic standard regardless of who funds their education.