If a reform unanimously approved by the National Association of Basketball Coaches passes, basketball players will earn five years of college eligibility.
– The Indianapolis Star (7/8)
Just read this on SI.com. Anyone have information on this?
The one big problem I can see with this is recruiting, especially the first year it’s implemented. We are currently under the assumption that a player will play for 4 years unless they can jump to the NBA. Now a player could play 4 years, play 5 years or jump to the NBA (or possibly another career after the 4th year)? It would also mean that Juniors could transfer and still potentially have 2 years of eligibility left? I like the upside of this but there is still a lot that could go wrong.
[b]It would also mean that Juniors could transfer and still potentially have 2 years of eligibility left? [/b]
If you transfer to another D-1 program, you will only get 4 years of eligibility. Effectively, you will lose a potential year. If juniors transfer, they will only have one year left and you will not be able to transfer after your 4th year.
JUCO’s and lower level NCAA Divisions are the big question marks at this point. How many years of eligibility will they get when they come to a D-1 school?
[b]"It won't affect kids who leave before the fourth year because they'll leave anyway," Brand said. "But it well help in building parity and in most cases, the benefits will be in the mid-major programs." [/b]
They only way this rule is going to help graduation rates is for the kids who might have used up their eligibility and opt for Europe instead of finishing their degrees. The dummies and the early departees will still fail to graduate. I’ll be surprised if the graduation percentage goes up more than 10%.
The parity deal is the best. If you find a good player, but not a 5-star recruit (say Jobey), he will be around for one more year with this rule in effect.
It’s a good think that Jason Parker is not still in school…with this rule he would of been about 30 when he was done.
I thought I heard (on the Dan patrick show today) the tail end of a discussion about Myles Brand and David Stern coming to some kind of NBA eligibility agreement whereby you will lose 3 years of professional eligibility if you go to college. This isn’t as bad as it sounds - it’s basically the NFL’s 3 year rule. Coupled with this, it might restore college hoops as we know it.
That last year before it goes into effect though - about 200 players are gonna declare for the draft.
Only difference between that and the NFL’s is that high school players can still jump, and more high school kids probably would if their options are either that or 3 years of college. The NBA needs to stand up on this, it’s slowly killing itself and taking college basketball with it.