By Bill Smith
Everyone
hopes that the men and women that get athletic scholarships to institutions of
higher learning will take full advantage of that opportunity. The NCAA has seen progress over the last few
years and can be proud of that momentum.
The NCAA is penalizing schools that fail to meet acceptable levels by
reducing scholarships for sports that lag.
Of the 218 teams, 113 will receive immediate penalties and 35 will
receive penalties and a public flogging—make that warning for historically poor
performance. 26 others will receive
penalties for historically poor performance including limits on scholarships,
recruiting, and practice time.
But when
the numbers come in for the 2007-2008 the basketball season, the trend could be
down significantly. It will be the NBA's
fault and not the affected schools.
The rookie
qualification rule that the NBA instituted beginning for the 2006-2007 season
stated that no high school player was eligible for the draft. As a result those players that in previous
years would have gone directly to the pros were forced to play at least one
year somewhere else. Most of the players
that qualified went to colleges around the country. Forget about the fact that the NBA rule
violates the Constitution of the United States; the players had to
serve one year in basketball limbo.
The trapped
players had very little interest in anything other than spending their time
practicing for their future career.
Let's just say that their grade point was only of interest to them to
insure they could play during the second semester. On the good side, the quality of the players
that came out of a year under a teaching college coach was better than in
previous years. The fundamentals skills
of these players were better. However, the
one year player's lack of commitment to the educational opportunity is bound to
negatively affect the NCAA's statistics next year.
While in
football a player decides to leave early to the pros, he is only one of over
100. Basketball is entirely different. The rosters are so small that a single player
leaving early will have a much larger negative impact on the statistics.
The schools
that will be most affected will be the major basketball institutions that lost
freshmen to the draft including Ohio
State, Florida, and
UCLA. Let's hope that the NCAA takes
that into consideration before implementing penalties.
Bill Smith is a
former coach of several semi-pro football teams and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for
http://BrutusReport.com and has published several novels on
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