Early Entry: Great for NCAA Basketball, Bad for the NBA

First and foremost, let's clear something up; I'm an NBA fan and a big-time college sports fan. Big time means I like BCS conference sports and don't enjoy small school upsets. 

I think the NCAA tournament should get rid of automatic bids, and use the RPI to set the field, instead of allowing teams like Mount St. Mary's, American, Texas-Arlington, and any other team with a horrible RPI who got into the tournament by beating equally horrible teams. 

With that cleared up, we get to the topic of early entry into the NBA draft. A topic that is still up for debate, as David Stern is attempting to push the age limit from nineteen to twenty. 

The issue seems to have both NBA fans and NCAA fans at odds, and on the wrong side of each argument.

Most NBA fans want to let kids enter the draft as soon as possible, even going so far as to repeal the current age limit in favor of allowing high schoolers back into the draft.

Most NCAA fans appear to be on the side of increasing the age limit, making kids stay in school two years, if not three, similar to NFL and MLB rules. 

While I can understand NBA fans and personnel who want to allow entry as early as possible, NCAA-basketball fans are truly missing the boat on this argument.

NCAA basketball has seen a tremendous shift through the nineties and into the twenty-first century with the rise of the "mid-major." Teams such as Gonzaga, Drake, Davidson, and South Alabama help feed the frenzy that is March Madness.  Fans love seeing the Bucknell over Kansas upset, or the Siena over Vanderbilt, or the Davidson over Georgetown. 

College-basketball fans live for the upset, and parity is the name of the game. Have any of these so-called college-basketball enthusiast thought to examine how that parity came to fruition? 

In the late nineties, and on through the game today, there has been a rush of early entries into the NBA. Most of this talent left the big-time schools (e.g. the UNC, UCLA, Ohio State, Texas, and UConn's of the college basketball landscape), leading to the watering down of their rosters. They began replacing guys who would be two time collegiate All-Americans with McDonald's All-Americans and top talent with no experience. 

While this was occurring, the small schools were growing their rosters, stockpiling second-tier players who learned a system for three and four years, laying in wait for the inexperienced freshman juggernauts. 

What has been created is a system where seasoned, experienced, mediocre players are squaring off against young, inexperienced phenoms. Couple this with the college game itself being set up for upsets, and you get that upset you so desperately desire. 

This is what college-basketball fans crave, the little guy winning the game; the David beating Goliath. If David Stern has his way, they can kiss this goodbye.

Imagine the '08-'09 college basketball rosters with NBA talents such as Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr., and Kosta Koufas, or DJ Augustin, AJ Abrams, and Kevin Durant.  Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, and Donte Green would all be back next year. With stars spread across the nation at the power schools, the window would begin to close on the little guy. 

Instead of experienced mediocrity squaring off against talented inexperience, that mediocrity is battling superior talent with experience, and that doesn't bode well for the mediocre guy. The WAC, WCC, MWC, and A-10 would become one-bid leagues, similar to the Southern Conference and the Patriot League.   

As an NBA fan, I hope the rule passes as a couple years of school will only serve to improve the games of young phenoms; Donte Green would learn to defend better with another year under Boeheim, and Kevin Durant could have added some muscle to his frame in order to better use his body in the NBA. Even Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum could have benefited from the aid of a college coach in their development. 

College-basketball purest need early entry if they wish to maintain the parity within the game. It nurtures upsets and creates a playing field where the little guy has got a good shot at doing the impossible.