JasonS
Football Moderator
Here is a good article from Cnati.com about College Basketball. It is going to be a 4 part series.
http://cnati.com/college/eyes-on-the-game-part-1-a-flawed-system-001954/
Eyes on the game, Part 1: A flawed system
By Paul Dehner Jr., CNATI.com Posted May 13, 2010 8:00 AM ET
This is the first of a four-part series viewing the central off-the-court issues facing the game of college basketball through the eyes of local college coaches forming one of the nation's most successful areas. The series will run every Thursday through June 3. Next week will focus on the challenges of recruiting/coaching an economically disadvantaged athlete.
Former UC forward Lance Stephenson. Photo by Brian Baker.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.
XU coach Chris Mack. Photo by Brian Baker."I think they are going to change, whether I want them to or not," Xavier coach Chris Mack said. "I think when this collective bargaining agreement comes around you are going to see kids have to stay in school at least two years. I am almost certain that is going to be the case."
Much of that confidence comes from recent comments made by new NCAA president Mark Emmert, who addressed the one-and-done phenomenon as an issue he plans on tackling.
"I think it creates difficult problems inside universities when we're trying to promote an emphasis on (players being) students as well as athletes," he said to USA Today. "It certainly creates a challenge for individual programs."
As to what exactly will happen, nobody really knows. Though, everyone has suggestions. Perhaps those thoughts should begin with the man more associated with the trend than anyone else in the business: Kentucky coach John Calipari.
A total of four one-and-done players came through his system this season in anticipated No. 1 overall draft pick Wall along with Cousins, Bledsoe and Orton. While another string of likely one-and-dones enter next season and will probably keep Calipari near the top of the polls, he agrees even for someone consistently snatching the top recruits, this system fails.
"I don't like the rule," Calipari said. "The kid should be able to go directly to the NBA, but if they come to college they should stay two or three years. I have never wavered, but we have a rule that I have to deal with. I am not going to be one that tries to convince kids to stay. I have never done that and I won't do that. My job is to help prepare them for life after basketball and prepare them for their future and then their family will make those decisions."
Cronin views the problem through a similar looking glass as Calipari. He would prefer to see high school players allowed to bolt, but once they declare choose college, be forced to stay in the program for two or three years. It returns the focus as much toward academics and developing young men as it does developing basketball skills.
"Lance Stephenson came here and got a 3.0, and went to class, had pride, worked hard on redoing English papers with teachers," Cronin said. "He is the exception. I am not taking credit for that; I am giving Lance the credit for that.
"There is nothing good about one-and-done for us. Forget about the college coach that is trying to build a program, because we know what we are getting ourselves into. But on our game, it doesn't look good...In college sports - the history of it - kids are in your program. Now, Deonta Vaughn in the rarity."
Perhaps one of the greatest reasons the program a few miles down the road has flourished is because of an ability to retain and develop athletes. The Musketeers are one of two programs to advance to three consecutive Sweet 16s and have done so with a plethora of three- and four-year players.
In fact, the departure of Crawford, who wasn't technically a one-and-done due to his first season at Indiana and consequential transfer, was one of the first major early departures by a non-junior at the school.
Seeing the quality basketball players and young men the program turned out makes Mack a believer in some attempt at holding kids in college and continuing to keep them from jumping directly from high school to the league.
"If you make kids leave after high school or have to stay a few years, you are going to have a lot of kids that make bad decisions," Mack said. "Not that they are making the most intelligent ones now, but a kid who doesn't have enough feedback, doesn't have enough maturity about himself coming out of high school is going to say, 'I'm ready.' Unfortunately, he's not."
Cronin tells his players, "if you want somebody to lie to you, you can find them."
Usually, the players don't have to search for long. Agents and handlers will find them.
If they can't convince a player he will be drafted in the first round, they will point out names like Trevor Ariza and Monta Ellis, both drafted in the second round before becoming well-paid, successful players in the NBA. They probably won't mention Ricky Sanchez and James Lang, also drafted in the second round, with a total of 11 NBA games between them.
"There are high-quality agents in that world and they take a beating," Cronin said, "but there is always going to be one or two that need a client. They are willing to tell a kid what he wants to hear, versus the successful agents at the top of their business. If you look, they don't represent those guys. They represent the guys that are going to get drafted. They actually turn down those guys.
"They don't want their blood on their hands."
And, in the eyes of the local coaches, until the rules are changed, the blood is on everybody's hands.
http://cnati.com/college/eyes-on-the-game-part-1-a-flawed-system-001954/
Eyes on the game, Part 1: A flawed system
By Paul Dehner Jr., CNATI.com Posted May 13, 2010 8:00 AM ET
This is the first of a four-part series viewing the central off-the-court issues facing the game of college basketball through the eyes of local college coaches forming one of the nation's most successful areas. The series will run every Thursday through June 3. Next week will focus on the challenges of recruiting/coaching an economically disadvantaged athlete.
Former UC forward Lance Stephenson. Photo by Brian Baker.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.
XU coach Chris Mack. Photo by Brian Baker."I think they are going to change, whether I want them to or not," Xavier coach Chris Mack said. "I think when this collective bargaining agreement comes around you are going to see kids have to stay in school at least two years. I am almost certain that is going to be the case."
Much of that confidence comes from recent comments made by new NCAA president Mark Emmert, who addressed the one-and-done phenomenon as an issue he plans on tackling.
"I think it creates difficult problems inside universities when we're trying to promote an emphasis on (players being) students as well as athletes," he said to USA Today. "It certainly creates a challenge for individual programs."
As to what exactly will happen, nobody really knows. Though, everyone has suggestions. Perhaps those thoughts should begin with the man more associated with the trend than anyone else in the business: Kentucky coach John Calipari.
A total of four one-and-done players came through his system this season in anticipated No. 1 overall draft pick Wall along with Cousins, Bledsoe and Orton. While another string of likely one-and-dones enter next season and will probably keep Calipari near the top of the polls, he agrees even for someone consistently snatching the top recruits, this system fails.
"I don't like the rule," Calipari said. "The kid should be able to go directly to the NBA, but if they come to college they should stay two or three years. I have never wavered, but we have a rule that I have to deal with. I am not going to be one that tries to convince kids to stay. I have never done that and I won't do that. My job is to help prepare them for life after basketball and prepare them for their future and then their family will make those decisions."
Cronin views the problem through a similar looking glass as Calipari. He would prefer to see high school players allowed to bolt, but once they declare choose college, be forced to stay in the program for two or three years. It returns the focus as much toward academics and developing young men as it does developing basketball skills.
"Lance Stephenson came here and got a 3.0, and went to class, had pride, worked hard on redoing English papers with teachers," Cronin said. "He is the exception. I am not taking credit for that; I am giving Lance the credit for that.
"There is nothing good about one-and-done for us. Forget about the college coach that is trying to build a program, because we know what we are getting ourselves into. But on our game, it doesn't look good...In college sports - the history of it - kids are in your program. Now, Deonta Vaughn in the rarity."
Perhaps one of the greatest reasons the program a few miles down the road has flourished is because of an ability to retain and develop athletes. The Musketeers are one of two programs to advance to three consecutive Sweet 16s and have done so with a plethora of three- and four-year players.
In fact, the departure of Crawford, who wasn't technically a one-and-done due to his first season at Indiana and consequential transfer, was one of the first major early departures by a non-junior at the school.
Seeing the quality basketball players and young men the program turned out makes Mack a believer in some attempt at holding kids in college and continuing to keep them from jumping directly from high school to the league.
"If you make kids leave after high school or have to stay a few years, you are going to have a lot of kids that make bad decisions," Mack said. "Not that they are making the most intelligent ones now, but a kid who doesn't have enough feedback, doesn't have enough maturity about himself coming out of high school is going to say, 'I'm ready.' Unfortunately, he's not."
Cronin tells his players, "if you want somebody to lie to you, you can find them."
Usually, the players don't have to search for long. Agents and handlers will find them.
If they can't convince a player he will be drafted in the first round, they will point out names like Trevor Ariza and Monta Ellis, both drafted in the second round before becoming well-paid, successful players in the NBA. They probably won't mention Ricky Sanchez and James Lang, also drafted in the second round, with a total of 11 NBA games between them.
"There are high-quality agents in that world and they take a beating," Cronin said, "but there is always going to be one or two that need a client. They are willing to tell a kid what he wants to hear, versus the successful agents at the top of their business. If you look, they don't represent those guys. They represent the guys that are going to get drafted. They actually turn down those guys.
"They don't want their blood on their hands."
And, in the eyes of the local coaches, until the rules are changed, the blood is on everybody's hands.
