The excitement and emotion of college athletes during March Madness is unmatched in sports.
But the college basketball system is flawed.
Less than a week after Duke was victorious in another memorable national title game, five Kentucky players — four freshmen — declared for the NBA draft.
While the product of college hoops is just as exhilarating as it has always been, the innocence of the sport is gone.
This is the third consecutive year that John Calipari has coached a one-and-done point guard. But can we fault Calipari for recruiting John Wall, Tyreke Evans and Derrick Rose? Maybe, considering he has two Final Fours vacated for NCAA violations at two different schools. But lets give Calipari the benefit of the doubt for this class filled with NBA-bound players.
The Wildcats coach is just using the system to his advantage. His best recruiting tactic is the success of his past prized recruits in the NBA.
And the one-and-done players are not at fault. Can we blame John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton for choosing to make millions in the NBA after spending only one full semester in school?
The problem is that high school basketball stars are unable to go straight to the NBA. The three best players in the league right now –LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard — didn’t need a year in college to prefect their craft.
Sure, you could argue that players like Kwame Brown, Shaun Livingston and Sebastian Telfair would have benefited from a year in college. But all three are good enough to still be earning paychecks in the NBA.
The one-and-done needs to be abolished. Players should have the option to declare for the draft after high school. If a player enrolls in college they should have to stay a minimum of two years.
College basketball has been tainted by freshmen entering the draft and forward-thinking pundits criticizing four-year players because their skill sets don’t translate to the next level.
It’s time to make the term “student athlete” mean something again and bring a bit of the innocence back to college basketball.
Jeffrey Tomik is the assistant sports editor for the Washington Examiner. Reach him at [email protected].
