I searched using the spelling with the umlat. That was my mistake.
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Should full-time top division Euro pros be eligible for college basketball?
- yes
- no
0
voters
It depends: yes, if they’re gonna play for us. Otherwise, no.
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That. At least jes this one time, pweeze
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My take isn’t so black and white. Full time is the key word in the poll question, to me. The Euro system is sort of like MLB with its minor leagues. Players move up and down. Young prospects get called up and make a few appearances a season. And then there’s the reverse, young players have top division contracts but get loaned out to lesser teams so they can play more.
My ruling would be that a player is eligible if they haven’t played more than a set number of games or minutes in the top division. Let’s say roughly half a season’s worth, to give some wiggle room to guys who bounce up and down a few years without ever getting over the hump.
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The Euro system is funny for basketball… your first and second teams and maybe even your third team are in the same promotion/relegation system. So there have been instances where second teams won their league and would have been promoted to the same league as their first team… but instead the team next in line gets the promotion.
There are also game restrictions for players in the lower teams to get promoted to play for their upper teams… similar to 2-way players… but instead the G-League teams could be promoted to the NBA when the Wizards are demoted. Haha!
Also… if your team is demoted and you stay on that team, most contracts are tiered so you make much less if you are demoted.
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I can get on-board with this.
I was a Yes, but conditional on the player truly maintaining academic eligibility - like they need to be enrolled in university classes of some sort while on their Euro pro contract and meet transfer student criteria. My preferred equilibrium is to be pretty loose when it comes to payments received before getting into the US system but also be fairly hardass when it comes to academic requirements.
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A year ago (probably even a few months ago) I would have said no. But then I completed my stages of grief.
I think fans are struggling from the cognitive dissonance of believing/wanting the NCAA to still be “amateur college student” sports… while every fact of currently reality tells us otherwise, loudly. These aren’t amateurs, and basketball isn’t a thing they do on the side while they get an academic education (exceptions noted). This is a (poorly run) pro league, with a few curious artifacts left over from its prior incarnation. So there’s no reason to exclude guys who’ve already been playing pro ball elsewhere. They’ll be playing pro ball in the NCAA! It’s silly.
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We have no control. The rules will be the rules . Fans just go with it. Coaches just manage it to win! Players just play to win!
Mortal combat! .. Just my humor. 
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For arguments sake lets say DeRidder or any other 22 year Euro player has not been taking any college level courses. Does he gain admittance into college as a 1st year academically but with only 1 or 2 years of athletic eligibility?
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I said yes but what I meant to say was yes (only at UVa). For real though it should be age based or based on years from HS graduation.
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My thing is why rules here when all other rules have been gutted. My current view is the only thing that should be off limits is NBA players. College is now a pay to play league. College eligibility is the only thing that should matter until they impose some rules on the rest of it.
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Someone else mentioned 24 as a cut off. You have any eligibility up to age 24. That includes kids who left college young and came back after a stint in the g league but are still under age 24.
Only exception would be people older who have never played organized sports before at the college or pro level (like military older enrollees) or Mormons I guess
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Johann has been liking UVA golf stuff on Instagram.
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Why differentiate between Europe and the US? Guys who never went to college before but then spent time bouncing up and down between the NBA and GLeague should retain eligibility as long as they meet your other requirements and limits.
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Another way to look at it: The Euros are just kids who took a gap year (or three) to gain work experience and development in their chosen career field. Seems like a reasonable path to take.
And maybe some of them needed to earn money in their chosen field to support their family (at a time when the NCAA wasn’t offering them that financial opportunity). Or perhaps they had other reasons, such as family health issues (or simple homesickness), to stay closer to home for a while.
I know it feels like Actual Pros are coming in and breaking our amateur college system, but if you look at it from the player’s perspective, they’re just climbing a natural ladder, and when they reach the point where they’re NCAA-level athletes, it makes sense for them to compete in the NCAA.
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Those pros (euros and g leaguers) are also making significantly less than some of the paydays being thrown around in college right now
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I didn’t know he had an IG
BTW, since Thijs De Ridder is a 22 year old international player, he’s automatically eligible for the NBA draft. No need to declare as an early entrant and no ability to withdraw his name from the draft.
So that could be a complicating issue too.
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