A plan to give college basketball players five seasons of eligibility seems to work great, but only if you don’t count too closely.
The NCAA is right to recognize a problem with graduation rates, but it should blow the whistle on a proposal to allow men’s basketball players five years on the floor instead of four.
It’s the wrong thing to do because it takes away scholarships from new recruits and makes it almost impossible to treat other sports and women’s teams fairly.
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The plan has nearly unanimous support from Division I men’s basketball coaches and the backing of NCAA President Myles Brand. The NCAA’s board of directors will have final say in April.
The argument goes like this: It takes students 4.8 years on average to graduate. A fifth year of eligibility would provide the incentive for many basketball players to take one more crack at impressing pro scouts, while staying in school long enough to have a realistic chance to complete a degree.
But here’s one effect of the plan: It robs scholarships from the next class of scholar-athletes, no matter how deserving they are.
It’s simple math. If you have X number of scholarships that must be spread around in five classes instead of four, you can accept fewer new players each season.
That’s not even the biggest problem. Another issue is letting men’s basketball players have five years of eligibility but saying no to other sports and women’s teams if they ask for the same treatment.
“When you look at it from an equity standpoint, Title IX legislation requires equitable treatment,” Florida Atlantic athletic director Craig Angelos said. “They’re going to say, `Why can’t I play five years too?”‘
Here’s one more point: Athletes in every sport, including basketball, already are allowed to take five years to graduate while on athletic scholarship. It’s just that they can play for only four of those years.
The system works well enough in football, where many players are redshirted. Basketball can learn to do better without rewriting the whole rulebook.