OT - One and Done is for Losers
 

An argument against Coaches/Schools signing "the stud" out of HS for a year if they want to win it all......

'One and Done' Is for Losers -- NCAABB FanHouse

Good read. Thanks for posting that!

Update....
 

I wasn't aware the one and done rule (not actually called that) required a year of college; only a year removed from high school. Nothing says these kids can't go play a year of low level pro ball somewhere.

Even the low level pro ball championship games don't offer the same prestige and draft raising possibilities of a good Sweet Sixteen game.

True enough, the point was not what would be in the best interest of a few players. My point was the NBA does not require a year of college, as the article states it does. Most of the complaining about the NBA rule has been of this caliber; either poor research or poor wording. David Stern has made his point clear, and I agree with it. The onus is not on the NBA to fix any issues the NCAA is having. They were having issues with academic infants playing college basketball long before the NBA rule was put into place.

If the NCAA wanted the problem solved, they could do it with academic standards. The fact is, they don't, because this rule gives them two things:
1. A chance to let their fans watch the John Walls and Carmello Anthony's of the world for one year.
2. The ability to blame the NBA for their own failure to address what many consider a problem.

Personally, I don't really consider it a problem. College coaches will shy away from these guys for the same reason they are careful with Juco players. Their short tenure makes them a quick fix to what in many cases is a long term problem.

Players were doing "one and done" before the rule, too. Carmello Anthony and Ricky Davis (Iowa) are just two examples. Neither of those players ever intended to stay past their freshman season, the way I recall.

Does the name "John Calipari" sound familiar? :D

Hell, Calipari buys a coupla of these guys every year. He always makes sure that he's at a school that can afford to make them the top offer too. SAT's included. They go to classes for 4 weeks or so in the fall to get eligible, and then bag 'em until they leave in March. And the classes that they go to are all in the same general mode as Music Appreciation. That's where they listen to rap music for an hour a day and then say "Hey, I appreciated that". I have no idea why they don't just pay these kids instead of perpetuating the sham.

Brandon Jennings of the Milwaukee Bucks and a Rookie of the Year candidate actually played overseas (Greece?) when he graduated from Oak Hill. His whole family went with him to help him adjust. I believe he was the first to do this since the new rule. Another kid went to do the same thing this year, but apparently his 'experiment' isn't going so well.
As much as he is loathed by some (unenlightened ones?!;)) Bobby Knight has the best read on the situation. He says that players should have to stay 2 years if they enroll. As it stands now, players just have to qualify to get into school, enroll in the minimum number of hours and that is it. After that they can carry "Incompletes" for first semester grades and just blow off the second semester. Since they are not coming back than who cares? Where as if they were required a minimum 2 years, they would at least have to pass one year of college level classes.

My feelings for Knight amount to a mixture of respect, pity, and disdain. Let me ask, though, has the enlightened one elaborated on just how, exactly, he plans on enforcing this two-year requirement?

If a requirement is going to be any good, there has to be some way of enforcing it or it's not really a requirement.

I don't think you can hold coaches responsible for this, because it's ultimately the student's choice of whether to stay in school.

Frankly, I don't see it as much of a problem to be honest. Each year you're going to have what, half a dozen players do this? So? Who cares? The school/coach gets what they want, and the player gets his prime time TV time along with glowing words from Dukie Vitale to help his NBA stock. The school may not be paying him, but some NBA team will gladly reward him for that year. If he wants paid, he can get paid in Bismarck or Athens. The NBA scouts will find him.

The solution is simply to change how scholarships are awarded.

Right now scholarships are one year deals and get renewed each summer.

If the NCAA required the member institutions to awarded two-year or even four-year scholarships which couldn't be transferred to another individual, then there would be a consequence to the school if the player left early. That team would then be down one scholarship player the next year (or for the next three years :eek: ). That would discourage the recruiting of "one-and-dones."

Consider the impact of what I just proposed on Kentucky for next year.

They would have to compete with about five fewer scholarships than the rest of the teams. This would greatly decrease the likelihood of this team repeating the success of the prior year. That would increase parity.

Overall, I think that this would be good.

That's my position as well. Hire them as university employees, and give them benefits accordingly, including (lifetime) tuition waivers if they choose to educate themselves and health insurance. Career-ending-injury insurance would be a plus, especially in football.

The notion of a "scholarship athlete" in the big-revenue sports has become a farce.

Ah, this would work. It still punishes the coaches for something the players have the power to decide. I think 4 years would be a bit draconian, but 2 is interesting. Perhaps scholarships get issued, initially, as a two year deal but can be renewed one year at a time.

I still really don't see it as a big problem.

age limits
 

I recently read an article pertaining to a speech Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gave where he advocated raising the age limit (to 21, I think) on entry into the NBA. His point was primarily that this would increase the maturity level of those going on to that level of play and being better able to handle the pressures that go along with being a high paid 'star'. It would also bring pressure to bear for completing college and maturing on the college court.

And, by the same arguments, they should, instead of being penalized, get a bonus scholarship for one of those 5 actually completing their degree after 3 seasons. How many college graduates can say they've done that.

And note that one of the four one/dones just completed his freshman year with a 3.45 GPA (Wall). Looks like he was a serious student as well.

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

Denied:1up! Software ()

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.

I didn't say that it was. Rather my point was that if one wants the school to give him/her money, then he/she should be exceeding the accomplishments of a normal student, otherwise one can pay his/her own way like the rest of them.

You misread the man. He's talking about new coaches (like Calipari) who revoke the scholarships of the athletes who were there before they (the coach) arrived. Sort of like the new CEO who comes in and fires everyone so he can bring in his own staff.

I didn't misread anything. The point is that doing that is only possible because scholarships are only one year deals. Most people don't seem to know that fact.
I'm not saying that he is one of those who wasn't previously aware of it before reading his referenced article because I don't know when he learned it, but I am noting that I pointed this out before he did.

I believe, and this may have changed, that scholarships are 1 year renewable contracts at the discretion of the university. It is usually just an inferred contract that these are four year scholarships. This is also why an athlete needs to be released by the university from their scholarship, but the university doesn't need the athlete to release the university from there commitment.