One and Done vs. Senior Leadership

Last season, Kentucky won the national championship. The starting five for the Wildcats was Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Anthony Davis, Marquis Teague, Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb, and their two bench players were Kyle Wiltjer and Darius Miller. Teague, Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist and Jones went in the first round, and Miller and Lamb went in the second round. Kentucky's powerhouse rotation went from 7 to 1, a top 30 recruit in Wiltjer. It was time for Calipari to reload, not rebuild again, and with the number one overall recruiting class he did just that.

But the question that every college basketball fan, critic, analyst or casual observer always asks remains the same: Is the one and done really beneficial for the sport of college basketball? For starters, it puts a huge asterisk on the term student-athlete. For myself and the other contributors of this blog, we are attending college to use the knowledge we gain from our classes to help make us smarter, and ultimately this knowledge leads to good grades and eventually a degree. For these college basketball players, they are treating school as a gateway to the NBA, not as an academic institution. With that being said, there are some players who take school incredibly seriously and are aware that their basketball skills are not sufficient to get them to the NBA. For example, two Michigan players last season had 4.0 GPAs and graduated from the Business School. To be an athlete at such an elite level and maintain such good grades is an unbelievable feat, but most students are not able to do this.

I am unsure where the fate of college basketball will go next. Commissioner Stern (or Silver when Stern steps down in 2014) have the ability to change the draft limit to directly out of high school. There will inevitably be players like Brandon Jennings (successful transition to the NBA from Italy) and Jeremy Tyler (unsuccessful stints in both Israel and Japan) who find loopholes around college. I believe that players who truly believe they are good enough to go to the NBA should be allowed to make this jump. They are disgracing the university aspect of a school, and are wasting a year that they could potentially suffer a career-ending injury in college. My favorite teams to watch are not the ones with the best players, but the ones where the juniors and seniors are able to lead the team and win games through teamwork and experience. My favorite team was during the Pittsnogle era (picture  below) for Coach Beilien, in which 4 seniors and one junior started, none of whom made the NBA. They played because they loved the game, they loved their coach, they loved their school, and they wanted to win. They didn't care about the millions that they would never reach in the NBA. If I had one wish for Commissioner Stern before he steps down, change the draft age. If kids really want to go to college to get an education and play, they have to play for at least two years. If not, let them leave and play. But at least let college basketball be purified once again.

-JS