Coach Cal sells NBA riches

John Calipari exemplifies what is wrong with college basketball.

Before all the Kentucky fans out there jump down my throat, let me explain something. Cal is breaking no rules. He is doing nothing illegal (depending on who you ask - a better way to phrase it is he has never been caught doing anything illegal). He is taking complete advantage of the way the NCAA and the NBA have set up the process of getting high school kids to the league.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

In fact, it is what makes him arguably the best in the business right now. It is why Kentucky is paying him $35 million.

It still doesn't change the fact that the way Coach Cal conducts business is exactly why college basketball's integrity has gone by the wayside. But we already know this, don't we? Hasn't BIAH already written over and over about the inherently flawed one-and-done rule and the effect it has on our beloved game? Isn't this old news by now? Wouldn't a column criticizing the NBA's age limit have been much more relevant a month ago during the build-up to the 2009 NBA Draft?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And while all of this may be common knowledge, it is still a punch in the gut when you see how little recruits are worried about the college game. You can hear from everyone in your life that your girlfriend is cheating, its still going to suck when you stumble across a facebook picture of her making out with someone else.

Take a look at some of the quotes from Jerry Tipton's column on Kentucky.com:

"He pushes you hard, and he makes pros," top-25 prospect Doron Lamb said. "That's what everybody wants to be." Lamb, a point guard for high school powerhouse Oak Hill Academy, mentioned the dribble-drive offense in terms of the NBA. "That is the pro game," he said. "He runs a pro offense."

"You go to college to get a job," top-25 prospect Jelan Kendrick said. "All the guys want to get to the NBA. Who wouldn't want to get developed into a pro?" The quicker the better, the players said.

"I really like them, especially since Cal went there," forward Johnny O'Bryant said of Kentucky. "Because he's a one-and-done coach. He coaches players. He only recruits one-year players, and most players want to get to the NBA as soon as possible." O'Bryant, a top-10 prospect in the class of 2011 and a native of Cleveland, Miss., acknowledged that he'd like to follow the example of Rose and Evans. "It makes me feel, if I go (to UK) and I work hard, I can be drafted in the first round," he said. "A lottery pick."

Marquis Teague, a top-five prospect in the class of 2011, feels the effect, in part, because he plays the same point guard position as Rose and Evans. "I know Coach Cal did great things with Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans," he said. "He coaches great guards." Teague, whose older brother Jeff starred at Wake Forest and was a first-round pick in this year's NBA Draft, wants to visit UK even though the program hasn't offered a scholarship. Why? "One of the best programs in the country," he said, "and Coach Cal."

Look, I'm not naive. I know that even without the NBA's age limit, college basketball was nothing more than a proving ground for those with NBA aspirations. There is nothing wrong with that, and I truly have no problem with kids choosing a school based on the potential that school and/or coach can get them a guaranteed contract.

If you want to be a doctor, you pick where you go to undergrad based on the likelihood that school can prepare you enough to get you accepted into the best Medical School's. How is this any different?

My issue comes with the mindset these kids have heading into school, the way these kids view their education, and the way coaches (in this case Coach Cal) take advantage of that. But can you really blame the kids, or the coaches for that matter?

The way the system is currently set up, it is in the best interest of the best prospects to get as much as they can out of the recruiting process (and we're not talking about life lessons, we're talking about the money, the cars, and the clothes) before choosing a school, feigning being a student-athlete for a year, and heading off to the NBA. If they get caught, what happens, the NCAA vacates some wins? Whoop-dee-doo.

It is not much different for the coaches. Given the nature of the profession, it is in their best interest to do anything they can to win some games, even if it means they have to cheat a bit a long the way. College basketball coaching is a cutthroat, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business, and if you're not winning, fan bases are going to get upset (read: you are going to lose your job). And while coaches have much more to lose than the players do (their paychecks, their career - think about Tim Floyd or Kelvin Sampson), it is not all that often that you see a coach actually go down for these kind of violations (is it just me, or does it seem like this whole Tim Floyd soap opera would never have seen the light of day had OJ Mayo kept Louis Johnson on the payroll?).

The bottom line is that as long as there is this age limit, coaches are going to be recruiting guys based on the fact they can get them into the lottery after one season. And as I mentioned before, you can't really fault the coaches here. It is a flawed system that encourages being corruption.

College basketball is a beautiful sport in an ideal world. The world's best young talent, rabid fan bases, the NCAA Tournament - on paper it is great. But as the sport continues to accumalate black eyes, it gets tougher and tougher not to be completely jaded by it all.