Zion Williamson is amazing. Athletes have their own pools - if he was not accepted as a Duke basketball player, instead of you who (presumably) don’t play a sport, they will offer ANOTHER basketball Duke applicant - and that player may very well not graduate from Duke. He will be an All-star; btw he publicly announced he will be in the NBA drafting!
Why do people keep talking about Zion? This thread is not about Zion. This thread is about college athletics…
There was a good special on HBO regarding how exploited college athletes are. I wish I could remember the name! One of the main people interviewed was a former basketball coach at one the schools that had recruiting violations (football I believe). He’s now coaching (or was at the time) at UNC Asheville for D3. It was really an eye opener. I feel bad for the kids. Most don’t have proper adult guidance and have no clue what they are in for.
You started the thread, and did so with this statement:“Zion Williamson entering NBA draft after 1 year at Duke” So I’m not sure why there is surprise that we are talking about him.
That said, I’m unsure that there can be any argument on the topic of college athletics/recruiting/student-athlete X that the most fitting response will not be “It is what is is.”
Actually this is some kind of open thread, where everyone is trying to guess what the OP is talking about. Allowing myself a self-quote from post #17:
So this thread is about all of these topics, or none of them. Probably better to close it now and let the OP start another one after he researches whatever topic he wants to discuss.
If I closed every thread that I found pointless, we’d have few open threads. 
“Duke has never been accused of any of the things you allege in post #31.”
Well that doesn’t mean they haven’t done what CU posted, not sure on the rape culture for Duke, but without a doubt, revenue college sports is corrupt, the ncaa never had the teeth or frankly, the desire to take out a program like Duke or Kansas. The FBI doesn’t have those concerns. There are tapes where Kansas was trying to recruit Zion and Addidas rep said he needs money and his family needs housing. The KU asst coach is on tape saying, we’ll make that happen. And he signs at Duke and you don’t think he or his family got any of that, they signed for the purity of playing at Duke? Duke basketball is corrupt, there should be very little doubt on that.
“Duke, like all of its peers,will always have a basketball team (and recruiting).”
Well most of Duke’s peers including UNC do not use 1 and done’s like Duke does. UNC, while having its own share of issues (tutors doing work for players) only had two 1 and done’s in Roy Williams’ tenure, and Villanova (NC 2 of last three years) does not depend on 1 and done’s, again like Duke, Kansas and Kentucky do. Those are where most of the 1 and done’s go, and not surprisingly are the most corrupt programs.
There’s a difference between recruiting 1 and done players who you know will leave after one year and recruiting players who may end up leaving after 1 or 2 years, which has happened to UNC, Stanford, Michigan et al.
@theloniusmonk and @observer12, the Duke basketball program is subject to extensive and on-going scrutiny, and to date has passed muster. There is a substantial difference between the way Duke and Stanford run their athletic programs and many others do. When the current football coach at Duke moved over from the SEC he noted that his first road trip was enlightening. He stated that prior to joining Duke he had never seen one student open a text book on a road trip let alone a full bus load. Year in year out Duke is a leader in number of academic all-Americans. If you look at the majors of these student, many are in areas of study we all would agree are rigorous (with coursework befitting a top 10 academic institution). Please make comments based on actual knowledge, not hearsay or conjecture.
@observer12, Zuckerberg and Gates were admitted based on having their unique set of gifts and Williamson, Barrett and Reddish for having a different set of gifts. All 5 had the ability to learn and be shaped substantially in their one year in college (academically and culturally) and to go on to substantially influence the future of our country, albeit in very different ways (and certainly more than the average graduate of Duke or Harvard). While clearly Gates and Zuckerberg have influenced our culture as entrepreneurs in the tech space, and, in the case Gates, as a humanitarian and philanthropist, it is demeaning to suggest that what Williamson and others do as role models to millions of young malleable youth is not also of vital importance. How their future messaging is shaped as they go through a one year crucible at Duke is important and valuable to their development and to our society as a whole.
As I said before, today there are income generating alternatives to a year in college (Europe, China and the D-league, among others). Most Duke student athletes choose to go to college (even if for only one year) because it is a better alternative in terms of quality of experience, education and, in the long run, quality of life. Greyson Allen could have left Duke after his stellar Sophomore season and been a 1st round draft choice. He chose to stay 4 years.
The issue is not the athlete (notice I didn’t say student) is choosing Duke, it’s that Duke is choosing an athlete for one purpose and that is certainly not to educate them. Love to see the class schedules of one and done athletes.
Zuckerberg and Gates were not admitted because their talents would immediately help a revenue-producing part of the university continue to be revenue-producing. There is no comparison. Zion was admitted to be on the basketball team. If he had announced before-hand that he would not be playing college basketball but would be spending the summer and vacations playing with a semi-pro team to keep in shape, would he have been admitted? Duke needed Zion a lot more than Zion needed Duke. That is why basketball players are wooed far beyond how much Zuckerberg was wooed as a 17 year old senior. If the NBA returns to allowing high school players to enter the draft, then perhaps Zion would have done that. But the system is set up so that the absolutely best way to showcase your talents for the draft is through college basketball or football. That is NOT the case with college baseball and I do not believe there is the same corruption in recruiting, even though some players may still leave for the majors. Those players have a choice of two equally fine ways to get to the pros. Great basketball and football players do not.
The equivalent would be if Harvard had a film production arm that made films that earned huge amounts of money for the school and they vied with other colleges that also had film production arms and those colleges competed for the most famous and talented high school actors and those actors had no place for showcase their craft for one year except at universities or abroad.
@observer12 all I can say is that you sound like a Duke basketball fan, I used to believe the same things now I have changed my mind.
@CU123 That’s why they’re student-athletes. If 14-year-old Freshman Zion Williamson decided to quit school and play basketball, he would not have the minimum requirement from HS to get into college, and without getting into college, you won’t really be able to be drafted into the NBA - in fact, where would you even play? They are athletes first and students second, but the thing is you can’t have one without the other from how drafting and athletic careers work afaik. Without being an athlete, you can’t really be a student (of course, a lot more difficult to get into Duke or other T20 school), and you can’t really be an athlete without being a student - the “college” division is the medium for athletes to further their career.
Well basketball players don’t really have to go to college. They have to be at least 19 and their hs class one year out to play in the NBA. They can play in Europe ( even if your name isn’t Bell) or they can play G League, or they can just wait a year.
But really, a lot of them want to play in college. They love March Madness. They love the coaching. Some have been going to the fancy basketball camps but some kids have just had a high school coach.
@twoinanddone “a lot of them want to play in college”
If the NCAA and NBA believed that, they would simply allow any 17 or 18 year old to enter the draft. There would be no reason to forbid it. Some top baseball recruits do like the idea of playing for a college and they forego being drafted out of high school. But the ones who want to devote their time to baseball and not academics choose the draft.
I don’t see any reason why there is a clear pathway for a baseball player or tennis player to forego college without losing any of their market value, while basketball players do not have this. A one in a million talent basketball player’s interest in academics can be absolutely zero, but any advisor who told them to go to Europe instead of playing for one of the many colleges begging him to attend would be doing that student a huge disservice. And the reason for going to college has nothing to do with the sham academic experience those athletes are likely to have, but because there is no equivalent way to showcase their talents and raise their profile.
(I say sham not because those athletes are not capable of doing the academic work in college, but because their priority is expected to be athletics and their best chance professionally is to make their priority athletics and not let academics get in the way of their pursuit of excellence in athletics. Getting on a dean’s list won’t make a player a higher draft pick but practicing to get their three-point shooting percentage extraordinarily high will).
Well, they did allow the direct hs to NBA in the not so distant past (LeBron’s group) and the NBA must have decided there was a good reason to instate the ‘one year out of high school’ rule. I think it was because the NBA wanted their recruits bigger and more experienced and while a few players may be ready to play right out of high school, most guys are still growing and are better players for the college experience.
My kids went to school with a baseball player who had to choose between college and an MLB contract. In the end he chose college. He had good advising as his father is a top sports agent. Baseball has its own farm/training system so it doesn’t really need the collegiate system, but uses both the minor league system and the college system to develop players…
For many sports, the kids are giving up real money to stay in college - golf, swimming, tennis, and basketball. The Olympic swimmers give up millions to swim in college but they feel it is worth it. The low amateur at the Masters looked sooo excited to be sitting next to Tiger, and he had his college shirt on. He could be making some money on the tour but he’s staying with school for now. A few basketball players are one-and-done, but most stay longer.
@twoinanddone nope that is not why the NBA instituted the one year rule. Like most things it was money, even players that look like “sure things” coming out of HS are busts in the NBA. The NBA wanted another year to take “a look” at prospects so they didn’t give a “bust” a big first round contract. It was purely self serving move by the NBA, nothing to do with some altruistic reason. In fact before the rule was implemented there were a bunch of first round busts by teams reaching for the “potential” of a HS player.
That’s the impression that Duke Basketball would like you to think but the reality is that it’s like Kentucky or any other basketball factory that uses the one-and-done model. The thing that Duke has going for it is that it’s a private institution and isn’t subject to Right-to-know laws that the public institutions have to comply. Duke use to volunteer lots of data on it’s team like average SAT, majors, etc but hasn’t done that for many years. Sure in the past they have had a few outstanding Student Athletes like Grant Hill, Shane Battier, etc that they trumpet as the ‘average’ but those are by far the exceptions and their top basketball players of today and just as likely to be taking a class at NCCU and never setting a foot in the classroom after December of their one year at Duke.