With all the changes in college basketball, and the dominant position the Situational Ethics Conference and the Big Ten are in, you’d think they’d be fine with letting pros back in college to get a bigger competitive advantage. As it turns out, you would be wrong.
On Tuesday, the Big Ten unanimously rejected anyone leaving the NFL to return to college, and then the SEC one-upped them and unanimously applied the same idea to the NBA and the WNBA, and presumably professional baseball, golf, and whatever else people get paid to play.
They also gave Commissioner Greg Sankey the authority to enforce that rule with severe penalties.
The rule extends not just to the big leagues, but also to their developmental leagues like the G League. Furthermore, no one who has been on a professional roster is eligible to return to an SEC school.
This is probably aimed primarily at LSU, at least at the moment, where football coach Lane Kiffin and basketball coach Will Wade, both of whom have always had, shall we say, a relaxed approach to established conventions, have made it clear that they have no problem recruiting professional athletes to play in college again.
In fact, just on Monday, RJ Luis got an injunction to play for Wade at LSU despite having previously been under contract to both the Utah Jazz and the Boston Celtics.
Wade, who has had significant trouble building his roster since bolting Raleigh for Baton Rouge this past spring, was no doubt happy to get the commitment.
However that works out, Sankey and the SEC clearly mean business. The conference may not be able to stop LSU from taking players like Luis, but if LSU faces a major financial hit because of it, the school may overrule its coach (for what it’s worth the vote was 16-0, which means LSU essentially voted against its own coaches).
In the Big Ten, the penalties are no joke. A program that violates the rule could lose up to 20% of its budget, and the coach will be – this is mandatory – suspended for 50% of the team’s schedule. The SEC hasn’t announced its penalty structure yet, but it’s not likely to be much more lenient.
And while the courts can give eligibility back to the players, we’re not sure the courts can force any program to sign and play them, particularly at such a steep cost.
The ACC and Big 12 are both moving quickly to adopt similar policies. In fact, the ACC is meeting on Wednesday to address the issue.
All else aside, Wade has put together a roster which could be blown apart in a big hurry. If all the players who played professionally, whether in Europe or the U.S., fall under the new rule, Wade would be down to four players – former Miami and Michigan State guard Divine Ugochukwu, former Kentucky big man Mouhamed Dioubate, former Kansas State wing Abdi Bashir, and former UT-San Antonio guard Austin Nunez.
And if that happens, it’s going to be very difficult for Wade to pull together a reasonable roster before practice starts, which is now less than a month away.
- SEC joins Big Ten in banning pros from returning to college, includes basketball players
- Big Ten passes rule barring NFL players from returning to conference: Could this decision backfire?
- Big Ten, SEC approve ban on pro players returning to college to play; ACC, Big 12 considering move
- Big Ten passes rule banning NFL players while ACC, Big 12 mull similar rule
- Big Ten approves rule to prohibit players from returning after signing with NFL teams – The Athletic
- The Big Ten and SEC have taken a stand. Can an NFL player come back to college anyway?
- Big Ten, SEC ban NFL players from returning to play: What to expect as power conferences threaten suspensions
- The SEC was utterly shown up by the Big Ten’s rule banning pros to reenter CFB
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