New Juco Eligibility Rules?

[Norm Peterson]

Matt's thread on the all-Nebraska juco team lead me to look into this issue about extra eligibility for juco players.

 

Seems there was a lawsuit by a juco kid arguing that it violates anti-trust laws for the NCAA to count juco eligibility against a player's NCAA eligibility clock, thereby depriving them of NIL opportunities. I don't know whether the argument makes sense or not, but he apparently won in court and now the NCAA is appealing. But while the appeal is pending, they've given all juco players an extra year of eligibility pending the outcome of the case.

 

So ...

 

There was a time, after the imposition of the old Proposition 48, where jucos became a hotbed of basketball talent. Prop 48, for those too young to remember, required players to have a certain HS GPA and SAT/ACT score in order to be eligible as freshmen. If they didn't have the scores, they'd have to redshirt and wouldn't be eligible to play their first year. And I think they basically lost a year of eligibility. They couldn't play, but it counted. Something like that.

 

Prop 48 is the reason we got Tyron Lue to Nebraska. The big boys backed off on him because he didn't have the test score he needed. Danny Nee stuck with him and the rest is sort of history (he ended up getting the score.)

 

But, as a consequence of that eligibility requirement, a lot of guys went the direction of playing for a juco, not losing that year, and being eligible to play right away. A lost year at the D1 level vs. two years in juco followed by two years at D1. Not ideal, but juco was better than losing an entire season of eligibility.

 

Then, along came prep schools. Prep school meant your college clock didn't start. And prep schools allowed players who didn't do well in HS classes to get the grades they needed, get a little older and stronger, get the test score they needed, so they could skip juco and start a 4-year college clock, and be eligible from the jump. And the emergence of prep schools kind of led to the diminishment of jucos as an attractive option for high-level players. Because prep school meant you still had 4 years at D1 whereas juco only left you with two.

 

But here's the thing about prep school. I might be mistaken about this so please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you only get one season of "post-graduate" education. You can't remain in prep school for 5 years while you work at getting a good SAT score. And the reason I bring this up is because, if this kid wins on appeal and the anti-trust judgment sticks, then jucos might potentially be a more attractive option than prep schools.

 

There was a big talent shift FROM jucos TOWARD prep schools when the advantage of prep school was that you didn't start your college clock at all. But that advantage would all but disappear with this new ruling. If this ruling holds, then I'm thinking there will be a shift back in favor of jucos. I'm not sure who gets the better coaching or which system develops players better, but prep schools have some disadvantages compared to college life that might make junior college more appealing to a lot of players who don't meet initial eligibility requirements straight out of high school.

 

Can anyone educate me further on this stuff? Thanks