Mick Cronin not a fan of one-and-dones
Bill Koch, CIN April 12, 2014
Lance Stephenson was the only UC player under Mick Cronin to leave for the NBA after his freshman year. (Photo: Enquirer file)
During his eight years as the head basketball coach at the University of Cincinnati, Mick Cronin has had only one player who left school after his freshman year for the NBA.
That was Lance Stephenson and it worked out well for him. Stephenson was drafted with the 10th pick in the second round in 2010 by the Indiana Pacers. After two years of languishing on the Pacers' bench, he has developed into a starter and is considered a rising star in the NBA.
Despite Stephenson's success, Cronin is a strong advocate for changing the rule that allows college players to turn pro after one year of college. According to Cronin – a first-year member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches congress – there is almost universal support among college coaches to change the rule. The problem is that there's not much either he or any other coach can do about it except to draw attention to a rule they believe is bad for the college game and in many cases bad for players who leave school before they're ready for the NBA.
The so-called one-and-done rule that requires a player to wait until he's 19 years old and one year out of high school before being eligible for the draft is the NBA's rule, not the NCAA's.
Still, Cronin said he's optimistic the NBA will change the rule now that Adam Silver has replaced David Stern as commissioner. Silver is on record that he favors a 20-year-old eligibility age and said this week that he might even be in favor of having the league subsidize some players financially while they're in college.
NCAA president Mark Emmert has been vocal in his opposition to the current NBA eligibility rule. But raising the age limit in the NBA would have to be approved by the National Basketball Players Association as part of the collective bargaining agreement, which could be a major hurdle.
"Hopefully, it'll change," Cronin said. "We need people in our country to feel better about college basketball. Coaches, although we're overpaid, we do care about our players. We care about academics. That's what we talked about at our convention."
Cronin believes the NBA should make two changes to the rule. If a player wants to turn pro out of high school, he should be allowed to do so. But if he decides to enroll in college, he should be required to spend at least two years in school, similar to baseball, which allows players to turn pro after they finish high school but requires three years of school if they choose to enroll in college before they're again eligible to be drafted.
"In two years you can at least get an associate's degree," Cronin said. "You're part of the campus. Your fans know you're going to be there for two years. It's better for our game. The problem right now with the one-and-done is that it's a charade academically, even if the kid is a good student.
"Lance Stephenson did great (academically)," Cronin said. "He was over 3.0 (grade point average) in his time at Cincinnati, but he wasn't around enough to even be close to an associate's degree."
If a player is required to stay in school for two years, Cronin said, "It gives somebody a goal. Hey, I can at least get my associate's and it puts me closer if I want to finish up some day, if I want to tell my kids I finished up."
On the other end of the spectrum from Stephenson is UC guard Sean Kilpatrick, who spent five years at UC, including a redshirt year as a freshman, and is poised to graduate with a degree in criminal justice after completing a season in which he was named first-team All-American by the Associated Press.
Kilpatrick said this week at UC's basketball banquet that even if he had had the opportunity to leave for the NBA after one year, he wouldn't have taken advantage of it.
"If you're doing the one-and-done situation, you're going into a grown man's league where you don't know nothing," Kilpatrick said. "Your body hasn't developed or you haven't really gained the knowledge to know exactly what you need in order to be on that type of level.
"That's something that hurts a lot of one-and-done players."
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/c...s/7647771/