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COLUMN: One-and-done rule destroying NCAA basketball

Brady Clark, staff writer

Earlier this season, America was treated to arguably the best two games of the season: Kentucky vs. Michigan St. and Duke vs. Kansas. Each of these four teams competed in the national championship game in four of the last six seasons and made numerous appearances in the Final Four.

Here were four of the greatest universities in the history of college basketball going head-to-head to start the season, but oddly, this wasn’t the headline. Instead, three freshman stole the spotlight – the top three freshmen from the 2013 recruiting class in Julius Randle for Kentucky, Jabari Parker for Duke and Andrew Wiggins for Kentucky were all in action.

However, my thought through all the offseason hype was, “But they are just freshmen. I want to see seniors and juniors. I want to see experience.”

Of the five players chosen for the preseason All-American list, two were seniors: Doug McDermott for Creighton and Russ Smith for Louisville. There was one sophomore in Marcus Smart for Oklahoma State, and the final two spots were the freshmen Wiggins and Randle.

Freshmen? How can players who’ve never played a second of college basketball last season be considered preseason All-Americans? But then I ask, where are all the senior, or even junior, superstars? To that I must answer; there are none.

The decision to force high school basketball players to attend at least one year of college basketball has altered what college basketball is. Top players aren’t looking for a university that they can call home for four years, but a platform they can shine on for a few months and make their millions the following summer.

Now I am not blaming the players for doing this; in fact, they are doing what I would do if I were in their shoes. What’s the fastest way to make money? It’s leave college and head to the pros as fast as possible.

My problem with this is why have the rule if they are only leaving after one season? What can they possibly be learning in that one year that will benefit them for the future?

Sure, maybe you will have players like Harrison Barnes who decide to come back. But for every Barnes you have overwhelming numbers of players are leaving like John Wall, Anthony Davis, Anthony Bennett, Derrick Rose, Kyrie Irving… a list that goes on until I’m blue in the face.

Why have this rule if players are leaving anyway? If they are ready to play in the NBA, then that should be their decision. Why is there a greater force telling them they must go to college?

The NBA is literally the only organization that has this rule set in place. How come when players get drafted into the MLB or the NHL out of high school, there’s no one to say they shouldn’t do that?

This is mainly because the MLB and NHL have minor league programs to help grow their players. The NBA has the D-League, but very few players actually blossom and make it to the NBA after being sent there.

It’s more than just sports; many kids move to California after they graduate high school in hopes to sign a Hollywood contract. Why are they different from the NBA?

Surely the odds are as great – if not greater – for them to not be signed, but they go anyway.

If I had any say on how they should fix this rule, it would be this: If they are good enough to go right out of high school, then let them go.

If they choose to take the college route, make it mandatory to attend at least three years of college. This gives pro scouts more games to actually say how good a player will be. Not only would it help pro scouts, but it would make college basketball so much better.

Let’s look at the University of Kentucky for an example. If they were able to keep players up to their junior year, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe would all be seniors this year.

This leads into my next reason why this would help college basketball. If Wall, Cousins and Bledsoe would’ve stayed, then odds are players like Anthony Davis, Julius Randle, Brandon Knight and Terrence Jones would’ve chose different schools and thus created a more competitive college basketball season.

There wasn’t a clear favorite to win the national championship last season, and No. 1 seeds consistently fell to lesser opponents. In fact, a new team held the No. 1 spot nine different times last year.

Some may argue college basketball is still competitive today, and this is true. But it’s competitive with an asterisk. Is it really high level competition, or is it a bunch of teams that are just average across the board?

Look back at the recent NCAA Tournaments. Every season we see Cinderella teams, whether it be Florida Gulf Coast University and Wichita State last season or Virginia Commonwealth University and Butler in years past. Teams with no tournament success are suddenly winning multiple games in the tournament.

Why is this happening? The answer is that these teams are aren’t having to replace players after their freshmen year. Instead, they have experience. When they go into the tournament, they are playing teams like Kentucky – which has nine freshmen on its team this season – who really have no experience when it comes to the NCAA Tournament.

Could you imagine a March Madness with the likes of DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall as seniors? Along with that, players like Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis and others would be manning other teams. Sure we wouldn’t see as many Cinderellas, but when we do, they would be so much more special than they are now.

The NCAA needs to fix this rule.

– Brady Clark is a freshman studying journalism and communication. His journalism experience includes three years writing for his high school paper, and he has had numerous articles published to Deseret News. Brady’s dream is to be sports reporter for ESPN. If you have any comments let him know at braden.clark@aggiemail.usu.edu