Was just thinking about this with Karaban. 20 years ago heās a 4 year player. 5-10 years ago heās a 1-2 year player. And now heās a 4 year player.
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Is this good for college basketball though? Honest question. I could see either side.
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Itās good that talent is sticking around to develop over multiple years. Itās not good that (a) theyāre switching teams every year, (b) the payment amounts and mechanisms are the Wild West, and (c) that guys are suing to stick around well past their four years.
The way I see it: for (a) get to a point where weāre giving multi-year contracts to underclassmen and/or some sort of financial incentive for retention to stabilize the constant movement, for (b) revenue sharing and public accounting of funds available and spending help plateau the money being thrown around, and (c) Give the 5th year whose precedence was set with the well-intentioned but ultimately-stupid COVID year exemption and get the Federal Courts to endorse that as a reasonable cap on collegiate eligibility in perpetuity.
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The reasons theyāre staying in college arenāt good for the sport. But aside from that, thereās also the natural balancing out as a result of players moving on when they become professional level players. Weāve screwed up the market forces, to reward players for staying at a lower level.
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I hate the 5th year. It effectively delays everyoneās PT by one year. E.g. in the 4-year model, freshmen tend for the most part not to play much; so in a 5-year model, that would mean sophomores are not playing much (and freshmen are utterly buried). The typical progression for too many players would be to not be contributors until their junior year.
This decreases the incentive of high-major coaches to even recruit them out of HS (too long a wait for results, and the kid may well transfer before those results appear), and increases the incentive for players to start at a low-major school and transfer up later. Which a lot of folks may see as fine, but itās baking in strong incentives to not go to a college and stay there for 4 years. The āstudentā part of things becomes even more of a joke.
Itās also kinda like adding 9th and 10th graders to the middle school team. At that point itās no longer the middle school team. Itās the 9th and 10th gradersā team. Sports is separated into age groups for good reason.
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Itās crazy, and the amounts being paid are the wild west, but it is far superior to the indentured servant status the players used to work under.
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Canāt use that analogy, because weāve had grad transfers playing for decades. Whenever the ā5-to-play-4ā rule went to effect, the NCAA changed the model to treat post-grad players effectively the same as undergraduates. There were some vague age limitations, but even those are stretched by allowing 19 year olds and sometimes even 20 year olds matriculate as true freshmen. Look at Ryan Dunn. And of course, if you want to talk about physical maturity and safety of competition (i.e. a 24 year old linebacker tackling an 18 year old wide receiver is maybe worrisome), then you canāt have exceptions for Mormon missions, military service, and minor league baseball, etc, where guys in their mid/late 20ās are playing against guys nearly a decade younger than them.
The problem is that the NCAA has created so many exceptions and waiver rules that the underlying arguments are so thoroughly eroded as to no longer be relevant. The COVID year was done with good enough intentions but it was an awful precedent once most schools were able to play close to full seasons. So now, how is it āfairā that Kihei got to average 32 games a season for five years but Malik Thomasās career is potentially capped at 103 games?
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To me, the fact that they made an exception for that crappy COVID year has no bearing on anything else. Is it fair that Kihei played 5 years? Yes, because one of them was that year. The only precedent this sets is that if we have another pandemic year, itāll be a freebie. (In fact, what would be unfair is to incent guys like Kihei to play in the COVID year by saying, āIt wonāt count against your eligibilityā and then come back and say ālol everyone gets that 5th year, so actually you got nothingā)
But I agree on the age thing, and would be happy if instead of the complex eligibility considerations, they simply defined this as a league for 18-22 year olds.
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No Malik thomas.
Also that last page is all euro kids we could look at
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Isnāt he not an early entrant?
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No idea but guys like yaxel and whatnot are on the list
And Baker-Mazara (lol). Amazing that both him at 25 yo and a bunch of kids who are turning 19 this year are āearly entrantsā
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I mean if you donāt think you are gonna get a waiver then why wouldnāt you enter your name. Hmm. Also, Iāve checked his instagram recently and there hasnāt been a post to indicate any sort of bad news, so guessing he has not heard yet one way or the other.
The flip side is if youāre in a position to NEED a waiver, then youāre not really an āearly entrantā and are less bound to formally declare. Technically all graduating seniors are by default draft eligible as I understand it.
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Yeah I think this list is specific to guys who have NCAA eligibility remaining.
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Didnāt realize Nate Bittle got a medical redshirt waiverā¦he only played 5 games one of his seasons but did play 2 of those games in late January of that season.
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^ is that relevant for Thomas?
Maybe? Bittle had wrist surgery that year and was a clearcut starter prior, so thereās probably a more convincing medical paper trail than might exist for Thomas. But similarly he tried to come back in January, played two games, then decided to shut it back down.
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Except for the fans 
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https://x.com/jonrothstein/status/1917349293528121471?s=46
Geographic upgrade of the century
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