034: Unintended consequences
An extra year of eligibility brings unexpected drawbacks.
Syracuse beat North Carolina by 28 points at the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, NC a few years ago. The date was March 11, 2020.
Carolina’s season was over after a dismal 14 wins in 33 games. Syracuse advanced to the Quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament, but the season was over for the Orange too.
It was over for all of college basketball. Professional basketball too. The NBA cancelled games that night and the next day. The following week the NCAA Tournament was cancelled.
A lot has changed since that game on March 11, 2020.
Armando Bacot has shattered the Carolina rebounding record, appeared in a Netflix show about the Outer Banks not shot in the Outer Banks, and made lots of money.
Joseph Girard, who played in that same March 11 game, appeared in 92 more games for Syracuse Orange that included a Sweet 16 run in 2021.
In an alternate universe, it’s likely none of the players on the court for Syracuse or North Carolina would still have collegiate eligibility.
Next year, Bacot plans to play a fifth season at North Carolina. Girard is trading in his Syracuse Orange for Clemson orange for his fifth collegiate season too.
Yesterday, Simon Wilcher asked to be released from his National Letter of Intent to play at North Carolina. It was rumored that Wilcher planned to arrive on campus later this week.
You can make tons of assumptions on why Wilcher chose to seek a release now. I imagine there is a lot of information we don’t know.
A fair assumption is Wilcher identified a lack of playing time available at North Carolina. The Tar Heels have channeled Chip and Joanna Gaines to fix up its roster this off season. Incoming transfers, outgoing transfers, reclassifications, and multiple scholarships still available in early June.
The Carolina roster doesn’t look or feel how it did when Wilcher committed in October 2021. The distribution of minutes over the past two seasons doesn’t scream balance either.
But this type of sudden change sort of feels like an unintended consequence of something else.
The NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility for all winter sport athletes in October of 2020. It’s a fair exception given the unprecedented times of the pandemic.
"I don't have to worry about -- I don't have any seniors," Auriemma said. "But I think you're going to have a lot of coaches that are going to go, 'You're putting me in a tough spot here.' Because now you're going to have some seniors go, 'Hey, I want to stay.' And then you've got a coach going, like, 'I wasn't planning on you staying.' Now what are you going to do -- turn the kid out?
- UConn women's coach Geno Auriemma
The extra year of eligibility is not without consequence. Consider incoming UNC transfer Cormac Ryan is five years older than Simon Wilcher and those two players would compete for minutes.
Experience is up and continuity is down in college hoops. Pittsburgh’s starting five was older than the Oklahoma City Thunder this past season. Freshmen are not playing as often as they did in past seasons.
649 total freshmen played at least 10 percent of possible minutes last season according to Bart Torvik’s data. 82 percent of players that played at least 10 percent of possible minutes last season were not freshmen.
This is down from years past. And it’s something Torvik has pointed out in the past as a counter to the transfer rules and name, image, likeness rules hurting incoming freshmen.
The extra year of eligibility was granted with the best intentions. It comes with unintended consequences, and those consequences are not always obvious.
There are many items that can be improved across college sports. The tension around treating some athletes more like employees instead of students feels like a big domino to fall.
It’s possible it would prevent events like Wilcher choosing to play somewhere else. Given the current conditions, a letter of intent is just a letter. It’s not a contract, and it shouldn’t be unless other circumstances change.
But those changes will come with unintended consequences too.
Check out the code to fetch the data using the toRvik package and make the table. And if you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing below 🫡