[Hoosier Red]

I agree with the eleven warriors to a point. Though I chuckle at their reference to "noted Calipari hater" when it was noted by a UK blog.

I think the holier than thou critics are overly sanctimonious. But I also believe that college basketball would be a lesser product if every team was built on 1 and 2 year players. There are many fans(myself included) who love college basketball but are indifferent at best to the NBA. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them is no doubt the connection people feel to their university,(even if they didn't specifically attend), and when a player basically does a free agent one year contract, the connection is lessened.

It's not a big deal to the overall structure if you're talking about maybe one player per year. But if every team had even one player every year who was a one and done, it would not only drop the quality of play, but it would lower the connection.

Fortunately, there isn't that large of a supply of players both willing and able to go from high school to the NBA in one short year. Kentucky happened to have 3 of those along with at least one other player who was able but decided to come back for his sophomore year. Which gets to why everyone bemoans the supposed "lack of integrity." Everyone who's not Kentucky is jealous that Kentucky is getting a lion's share of these very talented players.

To take the ridiculous moralizing out of the argument; think of it this way. If the Reds decided to basically sign the top free agent players every year but the roster turned over 75% every year, the Reds might be a good team, but really the fans would lose some connection to the team. Part of the joy of being a sports fan is seeing a player grow and succeed. Part of the joy is being there through the down times and appreciating the successes that much more. If you bring in great players but they stay for only one year, you don't really get that.

So if you do that, the only solution is that you must win. And win big.