August is traditionally a slow news period for college basketball fans, as attention turns towards the approaching football season. But the American judicial system, being new to its outsized influence in dictating the rules of collegiate athletics, apparently didn’t get the memo.
First, a class action lawsuit resulted in an order granting all members of the high school class of 2022—the last to not be part of the NCAA’s new “5 in 5” eligibility rule—an extra year of eligibility, instantly creating hundreds of experienced bodies for teams with a hole on their roster. Then that decision was halted on appeal. Now the landscape is being decided by a patchwork of individual cases, like the one that yielded a temporary restraining order making former Michigan State forward Jaxon Kohler eligible for a fifth year, which he’ll apparently play at BYU. Former Blue Devil Mark Mitchell is in a similar situation and is expected to play for Kentucky.
None of this is set in stone, though, as the NCAA has made it clear in its statements and actions that it plans to pursue every avenue possible to exert its authority on this matter. Which begs the question: Is it worth rolling the dice on a player who may or may not be eligible to play come November?
The answer depends on the team
The answer depends on the team. BYU, for instance, had major holes in its roster that needed to be filled in order to be relevant this season. Will Wade’s LSU squad has been banking on fifth year players to even field a team with enough high-major caliber talent. Kentucky’s roster, meanwhile, didn’t look on paper to be a National Title contender—the only satisfying outcome for Big Blue Nation—even with the late addition of Milan Momcilovic, but adding an all-conference level talent in Mitchell could potentially change that.
For Duke, the calculus is completely different. Yes, on paper Duke’s roster might be improved by another experienced body on the deep bench or to compete with freshmen Cam Williams and Joaquim Boumtje-Boumtje for the starting power forward role. But the Blue Devils are essentially co-favorites for the National Title with Florida for a reason. Duke’s deep bench is currently comprised of 5* freshman like Bryson Howard, who arguably has a higher ceiling than any fifth year who would be willing to join the Blue Devils for a bench role. Similarly, the ceiling is so high for Williams and Boumtje-Boumtje that it’d take a home-run acquisition to justify changing course, and there doesn’t seem to be one out there. Case in point: Duke could have made a stronger run at Momcilovic when he withdrew from the draft, but seemed to purposefully pivot to Boumtje-Boumtje.
But most importantly, basketball isn’t a game played on paper. Roster construction isn’t as simple as finding the players with the highest overall rating like if it were a video game. In reality, team chemistry and cohesion is arguably as important in college basketball as any other major American sport, exemplified by the fact that the teams who win in March more often than not have strong year-to-year continuity (despite last year’s National Champion, Michigan, being an outlier).
The Blue Devils have been building that camaraderie all summer, and the possible rewards of bringing in a big name now don’t outweigh the risks to team chemistry, not to mention the potential disruptions caused by ongoing eligibility disputes. Jon Scheyer crafted a roster that didn’t have gaping holes that needed filling, and is right to not imperil what he built by going after a shiny new toy.
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Source: sports.yahoo.com
