Blue Chip or Red Flag?

  Stanford Sports Info Charlotte Hornets Baron
Davis is an emerging star, after playing two years at
UCLA.

By Greg Schain
Daily Bruin Reporter Every year, big name high school basketball
players skip college for the bright lights and money of the NBA.
And several collegiate underclassmen declare for the NBA Draft,
choosing not to finish their education. This exodus to the NBA,
combined with the enormous pressure put on big program coaches to
win every year, has made the recruiting strategy of a coach more
important than ever. “Whether it’s Kentucky, Kansas,
North Carolina, Arizona or UCLA, the expectations are to reload
every year,” UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said. “Teams
like that aren’t allowed to have a program that is in a
rebuilding mode.” Being competitive every year is difficult
in college basketball because of the constant turnover of the
players. Coaches need to decide between going after players
who they feel will stay for all four years of their eligibility,
develop into leaders on the court, or recruiting players who can
come in as freshmen, have an impact, but will likely leave for the
NBA after a year or two. Lavin says he recruits players who he
feels have the talent to declare as underclassmen, but may choose
to stay at school anyway. “When you’re a major program
like UCLA, you are going to recruit the top 50 players in
the country,” he said. “Usually 20 or 25 will have an
opportunity to declare early.” Since 1999, UCLA has had three
players ““ Baron Davis, Jerome Moiso and JaRon Rush
““ declare for the NBA Draft  as underclassmen. But
Lavin also says he wouldn’t recruit any player who he feels
will likely leave for the NBA after one year, such as
Memphis’ Dajuan Wagner. “We don’t waste time and
energy on prospects that we feel will go to the NBA straight out of
high school or after one year of college,” he said. However,
smaller programs such as No. 15 Ball State can only dream of
landing top-flight players like Wagner, despite his ambition to
only stay in college a year.

  Stanford Sports Info More college experience could have
helped Jerome Moiso. “You never know
what’s going to happen in terms of a player’s
career,” Ball State head coach Tim Buckley said. “You
have to try to take the best available player, and if we had the
opportunity to take someone like Dajuan Wagner, we probably
would.”

However, a small school like Ball State is less likely to land a
blue-chip player like Wagner because they lack the national
exposure of the major programs. Therefore, the teams tend to exist
of mostly four-year guys. Buckley says there are advantages to the
stability that a program like his has to offer. “You get a
great opportunity to build chemistry through stability, and the
chemistry is really good on our team every year,” he said.
“It gives you a better chance for success.” Whereas
UCLA used to be known as a school that graduated all of its
players, today graduating student-athletes is less of a priority.
According to the most recent NCAA stats, based on the freshmen
classes from 1991 through 1994, UCLA’s four-year graduation
rate for men’s basketball is just 36 percent. The overall
athletic program graduation rate stands at 59 percent. These
numbers fluctuate yearly due to the small number of players in the
program, but they rarely reach the numbers of UCLA’s glory
years. Lavin blames the low graduation rate on the pressure put on
him to produce a winning team every year. “If the Cal Bears
go to the NIT for two consecutive years and then make the
tournament and lose in the first round, it would be considered a
good three-year run,” he said. “At UCLA, even three
consecutive Sweet 16s might call for the termination of a head
coach.” Cal’s graduation rate for the same period is
only 18 percent. As for this year’s class, it is likely many
will never don the cap and gown. Junior Jason Kapono is expected to
be the next Bruin to leave for the NBA Draft before graduation.
“We’re going about our business as if Jason isn’t
coming back next year,” Lavin said. “If he comes back,
it’s a bonus.” One action Lavin has taken already is
redshirting Ray Young, so that the team has senior leadership next
season. He is also recruiting more forwards to replace Kapono. This
year’s Bruin freshmen might leave for the NBA early,
too, although not after this season. Point guard Cedric
Bozeman guaranteed his return for next year, even before
he suffered his knee injury. “I’ll definitely
be back next season,” he said. He said he’d like to
stay four years, but couldn’t guarantee anything beyond next
season. But Lavin is confident this year’s class of Bozeman,
guard/forward Dijon Thompson and forward Andre Patterson will
all graduate. “It wouldn’t surprise me if this
year’s freshmen class stayed for their entire
eligibility,” he said.

  Seattle SuperSonics Earl Watson thrives
as a backup point guard for the Sonics.

Pay to Play? The NCAA’s most difficult challenge in the
coming years is to try and find a way to reverse the trend of top
players not graduating. Most likely, this will mean a fundamental
change in the business model of college basketball. “The NCAA
and the NABC (National Association of Basketball Coaches) know
there is a need for a new model,” Lavin said. “In the
last five or six years, there’s been a heightened awareness
of this.” Currently, the only financial assistance available
to student-athletes is from the NCAA’s Special Assistance
Fund, which puts aside $10 million a year to help financially
strapped players with clothing, school supplies, trips home and
family emergencies. Under the $2 billion TV contract that the NCAA
recently signed with CBS, $25 million more will be put aside in a
newly created Student Athlete Opportunity Fund, which will be made
available to all players. The most innovative move the NCAA is
considering is a loan program for elite student athletes–ones that
will likely be first-round NBA Draft choices ““ that will give
them $20,000 a year in low-interest loans. The legislative body of
the NCAA will consider the plan in April, and there will be no
restrictions on how student-athletes spend the money. There are
several ideas being tossed around among NCAA officials and coaches.
The first is to pay the players. NCAA basketball is a
billion-dollar industry, yet players, who are the main attraction,
currently see none of that money.  Discussions are under way
to start giving players stipends. “A stipend system
wouldn’t prevent the top lottery picks from going to the NBA,
where they can make eight to 12 million right off the
bat,” he said. “But I’m thinking that from about
the 12th pick in the draft on down, some of those players might
choose to stay a year or two longer.” However, this idea is
unpopular among NCAA brass because it would detract from the idea
of college athletes being amateurs. “The overwhelming reason
it probably won’t happen is a philosophical one,” said
NCAA spokesman Wallace Renfro. “Higher education sees it as
inappropriate.” Also hindering this plan are legal obstacles.
“There are 360,000 student-athletes,” Renfro said.
“Who would you pay? Only male basketball players? Is that
fair? Is that legal?” The idea of creating a “power
conference” in which the top 60 winning basketball schools in
the country would participate in their own elite conference where
athletes would get stipends, also has been tossed around. However,
Renfro said this is also an unlikely scenario. “There’s
been discussion about it for 30 years,” he said. “Who
would those teams play? Just each other? Then half of them would be
losers.” Discussions have also taken place by NBA suits to
set a minimum playing age of 21. However, this proposal won’t
happen in the near future for a myriad of legal reasons. Buckley is
skeptical of all these proposals. “I don’t think
you’re ever going to be able to keep players from going to
the NBA early,” he said. “There’s too much
opportunity for them financially.” Renfro agrees that there
may never be a permanent solution to the college vs. NBA problem.
“At the end of the day, it ends up being a personal
decision,” he said. “It’s all about
choices.”