I am afraid I am going to have to another short break from the relegation series to examine what is going on in college basketball right now. I was going to wait to write about the one-and-done rule and the mess John Calipari left in Memphis, but today’s Andy Katz blog entry pushed me to say my peace and get some things off my chest. (His thoughts were presaged on the Basketball Prospectus blog by Kevin Pelton)

To summarize Katz’s point of view: he thinks college coaches need to lobby the NBA and NBA players’ association to get rid of the one-and-done rule because it and resulting wrong doings (he points to O.J. Mayo, Derrick Rose, Nate Miles, and Renardo Sidney) which have besmirched the good name of college basketball. In essence, he says that college basketball would be fine without all of the cheaters and would be a-okay with all of the one-and-doners.

The main problem I have with his argument is that he seems to be saying that the college coaches and administrations were forced to cheat because of the NBA’s rule. I don’t think that makes much sense. Did the NBA force Memphis and John Calipari to allegedly falsify Derrick Rose’s SAT scores so that he could play basketball for the Tigers for a year? Did the NCAA force Tim Floyd to give money to O.J. Mayo and his “handlers?” I agree with Katz that college basketball would go on without the one-and-doners, but he should admit that a lot of the excitement within the sport of the last three years has been generated by the Kevin Durants, Michael Beasleys, and, yes, Derrick Roses of the world. I know that I have enjoyed watching them play against their peers (in age if not ability).

As a side note, the common perception of the one-and-done rule is that it was instituted because the NBA believed it was a lack of fundamentals, supposedly learned in college, that were hurting its game. This is poppycock. While college is a fine place and I encourage anyone with the means to go, if you want to learn how to play basketball, then the seething cauldron of the NBA is the best place. You either learn quickly or get out. The one-and-done rule has brought most of the best players back to college (for a year) and helped promote the sport. The players also received free promotion while not riding NBA pines. Although Rose was mighty close, it might be worth noting that an NBA level one-and-done player has not won a NCAA championship since the rule was instituted prior to the 2005-06 season.

I wrote a couple of months ago that I thought the school’s sports teams were the focus of too much attention (much of which is taken away from the actual academics of the university). And according to the New York Times, students at some schools have decided enough is enough and have voted against rise fees associated with sports . Of course, athletic directors like Vic Cegles of Long Beach State were quoted as the fees were needed to support competitive sports teams. But isn’t that a case of the few benefiting from the many?

Perhaps college basketball (and college football too) need to admit that in the worst cases, they are nothing more than minor league feeding systems to the professional sports leagues. (Of course, in the cases of Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler, college doesn’t even seem to be the most effective training ground). As such, they need to be like the Olympics and forget about all of this student-athlete amateur status nonsense. They should embrace their training ground/minor league status and start using some of the immense funds from ticket sales, TV revenue, and jersey sales to give the players a stipend (especially if they are not going to pour those funds back into the academic programs). If the players want to take advantage of the education being offered to them, more power to them. If not, they represent the university in other ways. An education is a terrible thing to force.