It is no secret that in college basketball, players come and go about as quickly as a college student’s paycheck. However, the coaches will now be feeling the repercussions when a player leaves early for the NBA or for any other reason, such as transferring to another school.
So when the Big Ten coaches and some players convened outside of Chicago for the Big Ten media day, the same topic could be heard echoing from every table ? the 5/8 rule.
“I’m against the 5/8 rule,” said Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo. “I think it’s a ridiculous rule.”
The 5/8 rule, which allows a program to award a maximum of five scholarships in one year and no more than eight new scholarships in a two-year period, was approved by the NCAA in April 2000 with the hope of eliminating the possibility of coaches running players out of their programs.
“I just think that if someone is running players [out of his program] then [the media] should write about it and rip me or whoever is doing it”, said Izzo.” Maybe then they won’t get any other players.”
However, Izzo and many other coaches agree that the NCAA is taking things out of proportion.
“The [5/8 rule] needs not to be amended but [eliminated],” said Ohio State coach Jim O’Brien. “I think [the NCAA] should get rid of if; I don’t think it serves any purpose. What I’ve heard before is that one of the things it prevents is coaches from running guys off ? that’s a joke.”
“The Dean” of Big Ten basketball, coach Gene Keady of Purdue, considers the rule just one of many that are unjustly imposed on coaches.
“Why should basketball coaches be given all these rules?” said Keady. “Why are we always hit with them?”
As far as Wisconsin is concerned, they may be cut some slack by the NCAA. This year the Badgers have awarded four new scholarships and have four new ones left for next year. However, early this season former freshman Latrell Fleming left the program due to a heart condition. Since he was a recipient of one of those scholarships, the NCAA may grant UW a waiver allowing them to gain the scholarship back.
With programs not only around the Big Ten but also around the country complaining that the 5/8 rule doesn’t take into consideration other reasons that players may leave a program, the NCAA will review an amendment proposal on Thursday. The proposal to the NCAA Board of Directors asks that they change the 5/8 rule to allow no more than nine scholarships for the 2001-02 and 2002-03 period instead of eight. Once that two-year period ends though, the NCAA would return to the 5/8 rule with one new exception.
A program can earn one new scholarship only when the number of student-athletes who graduate along with the players who leave early, but are on track to graduate in five years, outnumbers the number of new scholarships that year.
Besides the 5/8 rules, the NCAA will be implementing a couple other new rules for the upcoming season. One of those is changing the number of players in the lane during a free-throw from eight to six (four defensive, two offensive).
Also, the NCAA hopes to eliminate rough play all together. Rough play has been a key issue for the past few years and has yet to be fully enforced, but the NCAA states that this year will be the year it is effectively enforced.
Both the coaches and players joked that that rule is hard to take seriously because the NCAA has been saying for awhile that they are going to eliminate the physical play, and yet nothing seems to happen.
“Well, I think [the NCAA] says that they are going to eliminate rough play every year, but they don’t do it,” laughed Keady. “They emphasized that last year and yet it didn’t change much, so I don’t think it’s going to affect us much.”
As far as how the new rules on and off the court will play into the upcoming seasons, only time will tell, and we will have to wait until the players take to the court to play some basketball before we can see.
