Should We Bash the Underclassmen?

I know that many people have written on the topic, but I feel that I should get my word in. Clearly, the sensible and the "right" thing to do for a college athlete who has the chance to jump into the pros should stay in school to hone his skills and complete his education. It seems as if everyone has jumped on this bandwagon. I am not about to disagree, but I feel that the topic is much more complicated than it may at first seem.

Let's take a look at the Duke team of a year ago. This was the team that was supposedly one of the best in recent memory, the one which steamrolled past everyone all the way to the national championship until it was stunned by Connecticut. Who were the stars? Elton Brand, Trajan Langdon, Corey Maggette, and William Avery. Only Langdon was a senior, and therefore had used up his eligibility. Brand and Avery were sophomores and Maggette was a freshman. All four ended up jumping to the NBA. Brand joined the lowly Bulls, and while he did little to improve their record, he certainly was able to put up some big numbers. Avery went to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and while he has had some impressive showings, he did not have any sort of consistency. Maggette was uninspiring in his first year as a pro. The question is, why did this happen?

Coach K said it all along. The Duke coach was sure that Brand was ready for the pros, but Avery and Maggette were not. He certainly was right. Brand had the maturity, the poise, and the talent to become a star at the next level right away. Avery and Maggette were sensational against opponents who could not match them physically, but they had not refined their skills to the point where they could become true NBA threats. They were still in the embryo stage, and a couple years of college most likely would have been golden for the two.

Let's look at another case. The Connecticut team that defeated Duke had three stars. Richard Hamilton was the superstar, followed by Khalid El-Amin and Kevin Freeman. Hamilton left after his junior year jumped to the Washington Wizards, where he did not have the best year, but he seems to be ready for the pros anyway. El-Amin and Freeman left the next year. El-Amin was a junior, and while some believed that he should have stayed in UConn, he decided that it was time to go. Only time will tell whether he can match up against the bigger size and speed of the NBA. However, Freeman is a different story. In the championship season, Freeman was spectacular in the postseason, grabbing rebounds and scoring bunches of points. He was a very dangerous weapon for the Huskies, and was a Preseason All-American. However, come the NBA draft the next year, he was all but left out, forced to join free agency. He probably would have been best suited to leave college early, because without Hamilton, his game really suffered.

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