Fixing College Basketball

            I was going to type a review of college basketball in general after Monday night’s championship game, but my doctor ordered me to avoid college hoops at all costs after watching Connecticut and Butler look like elementary school kids for 40 minutes. I was an assistant coach for a 5^th/6^th grade boys team last year, and I can say with confidence that our team never missed as many lay-ups in one game as Butler did.

            Both teams are better than what they showed Monday night, but the game was a fitting end to an uneven season in college basketball. One-and-done players have created a lack of familiarity, as well as a lack of chemistry between clubs. The only thing that generates a great all around season is if there is an outstanding freshmen class (the group that included Kevin Durant and Greg Oden in 2007 comes to mind). How can we fix college basketball so it is not only more consistently watchable, but also generating better pro prospects? Here are a few simple ideas.

1. Adopt the same rules and regulations as the NBA – Why is it that the three-point line is shorter in college than the pros? How come teams get a 35-second shot clock in college, but only 24 seconds in the pros? Why are there different rules in regards to hand-checking (the NBA’s restrictions on hand-checks make it much easier for guards like Chris Paul and Deron Williams to operate in the NBA than it was for them in college. Does it make any sense that elite point guards would have a tougher road playing on the amateur level than the pros?). The only difference between college and the NBA should be the length of the games.
2. College coaches need to have their clubs attack the basket – The Elite 8 game between Butler and Florida was a great example of a typical college game plan. Instead of using his superior athletes to drive to the hole, Florida Coach Billy Donavan watched his team settle for five contest three-point jump shots between the final minute of regulation and overtime. There’s way to much dribbling around the three-point line, and not nearly enough driving to the basket.
3. NBA should not allow players to play in the league until two years after they graduate high school – The NFL has a similar rule in place that prohibits players from playing in their league until three years after graduation. If this rule had been in place before this season, we could’ve gotten to watch a second year of John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and Eric Bledsoe on Kentucky. While all three have had varying degrees of success during their rookie seasons, how great would it have been to watch them play for one more year together? Casual fans who normally only watch the NCAA Tournament would’ve immediately recognized them from the previous year. This would also provide the NBA with young prospects that the general public has known for a little while (as opposed to the current NBA draft, where it feels like we’ve watched some of these freshmen play for five minutes). For those that can’t make it in college for two years, they can play in Europe or the NBA-D League.
4. Players drafted outside of the lottery should be allowed to return to school if they have remaining eligibility, regardless if they had signed an agent or not – Under current rules, as soon as a player signs an agent, he is ineligible to play in the NCAA ever again. Adjusting this rule would give players a chance to return to school if where they ended up in the draft was not as high as they anticipated.

          That’s all I got for now. I had to plead with my doctor just to be able to write these four things (for those of you that didn’t have the misfortune of watching the game, you’ll just have to trust me). These rules won’t prevent a game like Butler-Connecticut from ever happening again, but they would at least guaruantee a stronger regular season year after year.