"One and Dones" - Some Data

[SFHoya99]

There's been a lot of talk about prospective one and dones on these boards. I'm not going to weigh in on whether they are serious students or whether we should take them here.

I think there is some interesting data about whether they are really "one and done." My question is: how long do prospective "one and dones" stay in school?

The first problem is how to define a "prospective one and done"? I couldn't go back in time and ask these prospects, so I came up with four groups that I think somewhat represent different levels of "prospective one and dones."

The four categories are:

Top 10 RSCI Forwards and Centers
Top 10 RSCI Guards
Top 11-20 RSCI Forwards and Centers
Top 11-20 RSCI Guards

You can argue about how much each category is really "one and done" but I think we can agree these are the general areas that the players really look at jumping. Each individual is different, but I'd be shocked if players ranked here hadn't thought of it.

Here's a table of three consecutive years of freshman classes, starting with this year's senior class. On the left is the category of player and across the top are the years they stayed in school.

Category of Player	Chance of 0 Years in College	Chance of 1 Year	Chance of 2 Years	Chance of 3 Years	Chance of 4 Years
Top 10 RSCI Forwards and Centers	38%	24%	10%	10%	19%
Top 10 RSCI Guards	11%	11%	11%	22%	44%
Top 11-20 RSCI Forwards and Centers	0%	27%	0%	18%	55%
Top 11-20 RSCI Guards	0%	11%	16%	21%	53%

Here's a chart of the average years a player stayed in school, with the straight to the NBA players taken out:

Category	Forwards and Centers	Guards	Totals
Top 10 RSCI - Straight to NBA	0.0	0.0	0.0
Top 10 Went to College	2.4	3.1	2.7
Top 11-20	3.0	3.2	3.1
Total	2.0	3.0	2.5

The truth of the matter is that most players are not one and dones, and are not likely to be that way. Things will be a bit different now, with no straight to the NBA players, but many players, especially guards, stay three and four years. Forwards are less likely to stay, of course.

I do not mean this as an indicator of Vernon Macklin's preferences, or even chances. Comparing Macklin to say, Sean May is problematic.

But what it does show is that people tend to overestimate what calling a high school player "one and done" means. Almost every Top 20 player has that tagged to them at sometimes, and many are sufficiently flawed enough players not to have that occur.

[Deleted]

God I love random statistical analysis applied to a sports question/problem. Nice job, SF.

But beware... there are those amongst us who will take one glance at this and call you a nut who doesn't know what you're talking about, let alone college hoops.

[aussiehoya]

i like this post a lot. with all the negative vibes about "one and done" players floating around the board, I definitely had the sneaking suspicion that the issue wasn't as cut and dry as people were making it out to be. .

I mean, a 'melo is really a very very rare situation. And if you ask Boheim (sp?), I'm sure he would have said that he was glad to have him, even for a year. I mean, 'melo definitely did nothing to "corrode" syracuse. Ok obviously a rather extreme example, but I am firmly in the camp of thought that says if the player can help the program and make a positive impact on the TEAM (yes, team), then he should always be considered for an athletic scholarship. I do realize that ideally, we would want all players for four years, but if a man is ready to compete professionally and earn a living for his family, we can't exactly hate on that...

ok definitely a rambling response, but a response nonetheless...

[SirSaxa]

If I understand your table, the two categories of "straight to the NBA" and "Chance of 1 year" should be added together to get an approximation of what will happen given the new rules. If so, then the Top 10 F/C category would be 38% + 24% = 62%. 62% would be gone after one year. For guards it would be 22%.

For players ranked 11-20, it would be F/C 27% and G 11%.

But for GU, I think the most important issue would be "Are these potential one-and-dones actual Students?"
The second most important issue would be, "are they exceptions".

Carmelo was an exception, added to a team on which most kids stuck around.
Same thing would apply to GU. We are not going to build a program with one-and-dones.

It is something akin to when Pops built GU in the first place. He didn't get Patrick Ewing in his first year.
It took time for Pops to build GU up into a credible program. Then he was able to bring in guys like Shelton, Dunbar and Floyd, before hitting the motherload with Ewing, Martin and Jones in one year.

JT3 is building a solid base.
His first year on-court performance was very impressive.
His first recruiting class looks good.
His second recruiting class is looking even better.
When the base is really solid, it will make more sense for the player and the program for GU to consider "one and dones", but only (IMHO) if the player in question is truly committed to academics... to being a STUDENT-athlete, not just a baller.

[SFHoya99]

sirsaxa said:

If I understand your table, the two categories of "straight to the NBA" and "Chance of 1 year" should be added together to get an approximation of what will happen given the new rules. If so, then the Top 10 F/C category would be 38% + 24% = 62%. 62% would be gone after one year. For guards it would be 22%.

That's probably right. No different than now, except that the straight to the NBA people will have to wait a year.

However, I think some of those Top 20 kids who would have jumped immediately will expose themselves as inferior to juniors, seniors and other underclassmen. The same amount of players will leave, but I suspect a lower amount of the Top 20 ranked.

-----------------

The question we need to ask, in my mind, for each individual athlete, is whether they will make an honest attempt to learn skills other than basketball while at Georgetown. I don't think it is wrong for a student-athlete to solely focus on sports, but I'm not sure Gtown should focus on those athletes.

My issue is really with what I view as mistaken assumptions:

1) That every Top 20 kid that mentions wanting to play in the NBA or mentions jumping early is necessarily going to stay only one year. It's not true. Even on the average, it isn't true. The average is two years, and only Top 10, taller types are jumping at over 50%.

2) That not getting a degree means you learned nothing at school. A degree is a sheet of paper that only means something in terms of future earnings. You can pick up one, two, three years of learning and not get one. It doesn't mean the learning you got is useless.

3) As an extension, and more importantly, the assumption is that a player who would jump to the pros after less than four years does not value education and will not work hard. They may or may not; they may just value a guaranteed $10-12M more.

4) That there is something more noble about the finance major staying four years because no one will offer him a job before then than Allen Iverson jumping after two because someone did. There's some virtue in valuing education over income, in my mind, but we're comparing an untested person with one who was tested. The difference is not virtue; it was opportunity.

These assumptions are silly, to me. The first one I sought to disprove factually, and to my mind, I did. The other three are more philosophical in nature.