I don't know anyone who doesn't love the NCAA Tournament. It brings just about anyone with a pulse to fill out a bracket and root for teams they haven't seen play a minute of basketball all year. I watched more college basketball last weekend and was appalled at the level of play. It was sloppy and uninspiring for the most part. It seems that the teams that have more seniors in their rotations are going to fare just as well as the teams with talented youngsters. I just keep thinking about how much better this tournament could be if the NCAA were to adopt a system that ties a player to a university for 3 years like baseball and football. I went back and took the players out of the last 2 drafts that would still be in college under this rule. Just imagine the excitement for the games coming up if you had the following players still in college:
Ohio State with Greg Oden, Mike Conley, and Daquan Cook
Texas with Kevin Durant and DJ Augustin
UCLA with Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook
Memphis with Derrick Rose
Arizona with Jared Bayless
USC with OJ Mayo
Washington with Spencer Hawes
UNC with Brandan Wright
LSU with Anthony Randolph
That doesn't even include the teams that would have made the tournament with the players that are in the NBA.
Georgia Tech with Thaddeus Young and Jarvis Crittenton
Stanford with the Lopez Twins
Indiana with Eric Gordon
Kansas State with Michael Beasley
Try filling out an All-American ballot with those names. Also, think about the matchups that we could potentially have in the Final Four. It makes me dream of watch we could be watching versus what we are left with. I would encourage the NBA and NCAA to adopt a system that keeps these players in college longer and allows the fans of both leagues to enjoy the talents of these players.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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2 comments:
You raise an interesting point. So do you think that would lead to a similar "Draft and Follow" system that baseball has used over the last few decades? Would JuCo's benefit from this as players who don't want to be locked to a 4year college for X number of years?
I think you're right though, the tourney would be out of hand if all those top notch players were still in college!
I dont see a situation where Juco players would go to the NBA. I would think more guys would head to Europe like Brandon Jennings did this year because the competition is better and the money is great.
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