Mick Cronin says he knew when he first landed Lance Stephenson. He says he still knew even when Stephenson made a public declaration he would return to the University of Cincinnati for a sophomore season.
"I knew he was going to leave," Cronin said. "I knew it was a one-and-done. My experience told me that."
Indeed, Cronin was right.
Stephenson served as the local poster-child in a college basketball epidemic. He shares the regional milk carton with Xavier's Jordan Crawford and Kentucky's quartet of John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton.
The system of college basketball players declaring for the NBA Draft is flawed. To players, the shortened time frame in which a decision needed to be made was unfair. To coaches, the concept of constantly restarting the process of building a program is extenuating.
To this country, the very nature with which basketball players are prohibited from joining the professional ranks once they graduate high school is nearly unconstitutional.
As the college basketball community mourns the departure of a record number of early entrants to June's NBA Draft, those coaches guiding programs in one of the game's most smoldering hotbeds all temporarily unwrap the gloves to agree on one central fact personal to all of them: The system must change.
Cronin spent his early years running drills at the ABCD and Five-Star camps alongside the likes of Kobe Bryant and Stephon Marbury and 15 more years following the paths of players from high school to college and beyond as a coach.
He insists he's never seen anything like the mass exodus which occurred this year.
"It's unbelievable," he said. "On our game, it doesn't look good."
A total of 50 collegiate underclassmen decided to stick with their decision to enter the NBA Draft as the early-entry deadline came and went this past weekend.
Since the rules were put in place to disallow players to jump directly from high school to the pros, that number had never been higher than 39. Even in 2005, when a contingent of high school seniors joined the underclassmen, that number only touched 49.
Coaches, players and pundits alike own theories for the 25 percent jump, ranging from an impending lockout to the poor advice of those surrounding these athletes. Regardless, of the reason, they don't believe the rules will be an issue much longer.
continued...
"I knew he was going to leave," Cronin said. "I knew it was a one-and-done. My experience told me that."
Indeed, Cronin was right.
Stephenson served as the local poster-child in a college basketball epidemic. He shares the regional milk carton with Xavier's Jordan Crawford and Kentucky's quartet of John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton.
The system of college basketball players declaring for the NBA Draft is flawed. To players, the shortened time frame in which a decision needed to be made was unfair. To coaches, the concept of constantly restarting the process of building a program is extenuating.
To this country, the very nature with which basketball players are prohibited from joining the professional ranks once they graduate high school is nearly unconstitutional.
As the college basketball community mourns the departure of a record number of early entrants to June's NBA Draft, those coaches guiding programs in one of the game's most smoldering hotbeds all temporarily unwrap the gloves to agree on one central fact personal to all of them: The system must change.
Cronin spent his early years running drills at the ABCD and Five-Star camps alongside the likes of Kobe Bryant and Stephon Marbury and 15 more years following the paths of players from high school to college and beyond as a coach.
He insists he's never seen anything like the mass exodus which occurred this year.
"It's unbelievable," he said. "On our game, it doesn't look good."
A total of 50 collegiate underclassmen decided to stick with their decision to enter the NBA Draft as the early-entry deadline came and went this past weekend.
Since the rules were put in place to disallow players to jump directly from high school to the pros, that number had never been higher than 39. Even in 2005, when a contingent of high school seniors joined the underclassmen, that number only touched 49.
Coaches, players and pundits alike own theories for the 25 percent jump, ranging from an impending lockout to the poor advice of those surrounding these athletes. Regardless, of the reason, they don't believe the rules will be an issue much longer.
continued...