By Gordon Dixon
After Monday’s loss to Duke in the national championship game, Wisconsin men’s basketball head coach Bo Ryan made a comment during his press conference that the Badgers “don’t do a rent-a-player.” He was, of course, making a reference to the growing trend of highly recruited and talented players enrolling in college for just one season before heading on to the pros. Duke’s Jahlil Okafor, who could be the top pick in June’s NBA Draft, may be the latest in the line of “one and done” players.
While Bo Ryan isn’t a fan of the idea of guys staying for just one season, there are more than a few coaches who have adapted and embrace the concept. Included in that group is Avery Johnson, the new head coach of Alabama’s men’s basketball program.
“My philosophy is we need to get a couple of one and dones,” Johnson said via AL.com. “I think it would help our whole program.”
“But we also need two-and-dones and we need some kids that are going to be four-year students that can get out here and maybe not get to the NBA, but get out here into the petroleum engineering arena, or maybe get into the oil and gas business or financial business, one of these Wall Street firms so we need to have a balance in our program.”
Under Mark Gottfried, Alabama made it to the NCAA Tournament five consecutive seasons from 2002-2006, however they’ve been just once since then. In an effort to return the program back to that level, Johnson understands college basketball is much different now than it used to be. It’s much less common for highly rated players out of high school to stick around at the college level for three or four years.
Johnson is right that balance is needed. However, to elevate a program elite talent certainly goes a long way in helping to achieve that, even if the player is only there for one or two years. What happens during that time period could be more than worth the trade off.
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