NCAA’s ‘ Year of the Senior’ closes
The “One and Dones” didn’t get anywhere near the Final Four this season. Instead, this will be remembered as the year when patience was rewarded.
The projected top two picks of the upcoming NBA draft, freshmen Brandon Ingram of Duke and Ben Simmons of LSU, were warming up the couch for Monday night’s title game between North Carolina and Villanova — two teams that, quite fittingly, got where they are with a locker- room full of seniors.
“We did have good freshmen this year,” said Kansas coach Bill Self, in summing up the scene around the country. “But seniors stole the show.”
The Season of the Senior offered a break from the storylines of the last five or six years, during which hand- wringing over t he “One and Done” rule has taken over the sport, almost non-stop.
Officially ,“One and Done” is the NBA’s requirement that players be at least 19 and wait one season after graduating high school before entering the draft. With the league and union expected to pick up negotiations this year, the debate almost certainly will be resumed.
What’s the best outcome? Depends on who you ask.
At the college level, “One and Done” can make for some exciting one- hit wonders. John Calipari has led Kentucky to four Final Fours over the last six years, with one national championship, thanks to his un- canny ability to reload at Kentucky.
Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski also has a title under that formula.
Both have faced their share of criticism for sacrificing continuity and subverting education in exchange for the high of a quick title run.
Meanwhile, at the NBA level, Charles Barkley considers “One and Done” a crisis. “We’ve got guys who can’t play coming to the NBA after one year,” he said. “Our quality of basketball is awful.
“We’ve got six good teams ... We can’t sustain our business model that way. Charging people outrageous sums of money for regularseason tickets and putting a ( bad) product out there, we’re going to kill our product.”
To Barkley’s dismay, this season looks more like a one- time reprieve than a trend.
The upcoming recruiting class is loaded. Jayson Tatum and Harry Giles have committed to Duke; De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and Bam Adebayo are pointed toward Kentucky. All are already listed on 2017 mock NBA draft boards.
Because these five are moving as package deals to coaches who are used to this sort of thing, their chances for NCAA success over a short stay figure to be greater.
This year’s f r eshmen, however, were different. Instead of “One and Done,” this group was more like “Now or Never.”
In a perfect world, says former UConn coach Jim Calhoun, these situations wouldn’t be so common.
“You take 770 kids transferring every year, and add those to the freshmen who leave,” he said, “and it’s a case where you just don’t get the stability in the game. I’m not trying to be a curmudgeon. I’d just like to see more stability.” In a way, 2015-16 must have felt like a nice breather to him.
All these Final Four seniors — Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige of Carolina, Daniel Ochefu and Ryan Arcidiacono of Villanova, Buddy Hield of Oklahoma and Michael Gbinije of Syracuse — should, at minimum, get a chance to make an NBA roster next season.
Hield and Johnson could both be lottery picks. That they all had four years to learn basketball in college only helped their cause.
WE’VE GOT GUYS WHO CAN’T PLAY COMING TO THE NBA.