Beauty and the Beast: The controversial topic of players leaving early from college

10 years ago, NCAA basketball fans never got to witness stars like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, as these highly recruited high school seniors were being drafted striaght into the NBA. Since then, there has been a rule implemented to require American players to play at least one year in college before continuing on to the Assosciation. This rule has been hotly debated since its inception, and there is still a trend today to change it.

The beauty of the rule is that us fans no longer miss out on future hall-of-famers like Kobe and LeBron. The main point is that colleges make tons of revenue on these stars, and that makes the presidents and ADs very happy. In addition, many players grow up a lot and become more mature during their time in college, and get used to playing with higher calliber athletes. One major side effect of this rule has been the incredibly quick transition times programs now experience between being a high tournament seed and having a losing season. Superstar 4-year players like Tyler Hansborough are now relatively rare, and almost every highly-touted high school senior now becomes a one-and-done, meaning they flee to the NBA after their freshman year in college.

So why does this matter? Many would, in fact, say that it only gives a few marquee colleges a couple of nice players every decade. The point is that now, unlike any other time in history, the game is changing so rapidly that parody has ensued. Back before the rule, the best of the best skipped the NCAA and didn't give a program one great year, only the leave afterwards. But the great players that did go to college actually valueda 4-year degree, and usually stayed through their senior year. This system worked extremely well, and founded many fundamental NCAA concepts. For example, the best programs always stayed elite, since all they had to do was recruit a few players every 4 years. This feauture led to the rise of great upsets in the tournament, and made it special to watch a big, traditional powerhouse go down early.

But now, it really doesn't matter that much. In this year's tournament, the regional semifinals consisted of a 1,10,11,and 12 seed. Sure, this was surprising, but there lacked an intrigue and an aura of epicness that previous tournaments would have contained. Butler as an 8 seed was in the finals; but people wont look back 25 years from now and remember the run like they do Villanova's magical 8 seed run the the championship in 1985. The parody has simply killed the surprise value of such great upsets these days, and while March Madness is still entertaining, it continues to lose much of its luster.

So, a solution to this problem? Either add a year to the rule of eliminate it all together. In the NBA and NCAA are so enamored with making these young men go to college for at least a year, then why not make it 2? At least the fans can see more entertainment, and the parody in college basketball will definitely decrease. However, until the rule is changed, March Madness will continue to go downhill.