Tar Heels Thrive on College Basketball's Great Inequity

Finally, in 1965, Major League Baseball joined their NFL and NBA brethren and instituted a player draft.

The NFL, a league that prides itself on parity, and the NBA, the people who gave the ping pong ball new meaning, both had a player draft in place years before MLB came around.

Yankees executive Johnny Johnson claimed the draft was equal to communism, and the National League's Dodgers and Cardinals were as strongly against it, but now, it's hard to envision any professional team sport not having a player draft.

Let me clarify this: It's not just professional sports we're talking about.  My Little League had a player draft!

College basketball and football don't function with the same spirit as their professional counterparts.  They don't care about equalizing the distribution of talent and have been living with this inherent flaw—an inequity their sport embodies—forever.

And it's the basketball super powers—you know their names—that have been the recipients of the advantage this system allows them to have.

When was the last time North Carolina didn't get the best recruiting class in the country?  It never happens!

No one gets the kind of recruiting classes that UNC gets—no one except Duke.

Duke was weak in the middle this year and lost by 20 to Villanova in the NCAA Tournament.  They went out and recruited the No. 2 center and the No. 4 power forward in this year's class.  Problem solved!

UNC and Duke only deal with "Top 100s," and most of them are MacDonald's All-Americans.  Over the last three years, Duke has recruited eight players.  Six of them were MacDonald's All-Americans.

UNC recruited six MacDonald's All-Americans in the last two years. 

Do you know it took Roy Williams just two years at UNC to accomplish what he couldn't in 15 years at Kansas—win a national championship?  Kansas gets excellent recruits.  North Carolina gets the best!

It doesn't seem that the basketball court is exactly level.

What made Sienna's upset of Ohio State in this year's tournament so great was that they can't even sniff a "Top 100" but still beat a team that only gets "Top 100s."  Same thing for Cleveland State's upset of Wake Forest.

Dayton was a team that gets a "Top 100" about once every other year, and they upset West Virginia.  Good job, Flyers!

The system is flawed.  The basketball court needs to be leveled.  It might be time for a player draft in college basketball.

Here's how it works:

First, every student-athlete should be able to attend the school of his or her choice.  However, such student-athletes should be expected to achieve the same SAT score that the average student at such a school is required to have.

If you want to play basketball for UNC and they offer you a scholarship—get over 1200 on your SAT.

Is this fair?  Absolutely not!  Schools that don't require high SAT scores will have a much larger talent pool.  A norm, an SAT score that is not so high, and certainly not as low as today's minimum (800), would be established.  How about 1100?

Any recruit who gets an 1100 on their SAT can go anywhere they're offered a scholarship.

What about the student-athletes who don't score 1100?  Good question!  They would be eligible for a national, or more likely a regional, pool, and a draft would take place.

This would have a great equalizing effect on the sport and lead it in the direction of parity.  It would make it so a coach has to rely on his coaching ability, and not on the amount of MacDonald's All-Americans who gravitated to his school.

The time and effort schools put into recruiting would be cut down enormously. Everybody already knows who the players are—they've known about these kids since they were in eighth grade.

The NCAA wouldn't have to spend so much time on recruiting violations.  Hello, UConn!

And most of all, student-athletes intent on attending the school of their choice might study harder, so they could get an 1100 on the SAT.

Isn't this a better system?  Wouldn't this level the basketball court a little more than it is currently, and wouldn't this restore some sportsmanship to the game?

I have nothing against Roy Williams, Jim Calhoun, or Coach K.  Nothing except that they get the best talent in the country, year in, year out.  Let's see what they can do with the talent that everyone else gets.

Baseball broke up the Yankees for a reason.  It's the same reason college basketball should think about equalizing the distribution of talent!