NCAA To Grant Extra Year of Eligibility for Spring Sports; Still Discussing Winter Sports
The NCAA will grant an additional year of eligibility for athletes in Spring Sports like Baseball and Softball. They are still discussing and trying to figure out what they could do for Winter sports.
My guess is that since Winter Sports were extremely close to being over, the NCAA will not give an extra year of eligibility. But they are talking about it and it is a possibility.
Boy would it be insane to have Zavier and Jon on next year's deep and talented team.
How would that work with scholarship limits? Are schools with 5 seniors on the team this year going to field a 20 person team next year? If not, that will force a lot of players to transfer or recruits to reopen their recruitment and sign with different schools. It seems it would reward teams who did a poor job recruiting or managing their rosters that have a bunch of open spaces.
I think logistically it won't work for Winter Sports, but they could probably add scholarships to the limits to compensate. That's probably why they're still discussing it
That was my first thought as well. If they're doing this, they have to give a one year exemption on scholarship count.
I think it ought to be simple: any player who would have exhausted his or her eligibility in 2020 and is playing in 2021 on a waiver doesn't count against the roster or scholarship limits. Then you don't have to guess about how many spaces to add.
If a team has 5 seniors, then they were going to have a 5 player recruiting class. Giving them a serious advantage over a school who only had to replace 1 or 2 seniors. Just an example and not based off any specific school.
Agreed and I am OK with that. I don't think every senior will come back, though. Some will just decide to move on. Besides, a little unexpected reward for schools who actually do bring back seniors and not just a bunch of OADs might just be a feature rather than a bug.
March 14th, 2020 at 12:39 AM ^
I actually think the amount of seniors that come back would be fairly small. Mainly because I'm assuming they would still need to be a student at the university. So either the player hasn't graduated yet, and won't for another year, or they've been accepted into grad school where they are doing undergrad. At this point I'm guessing a lot of the seniors already have accepted jobs or been admitted to grad school somewhere. Now if they are going to grad school they could still play but it would be up to their new school if they wanted to accept them on the team.
Thanks for the posting the positive news. It would be so unfair for all of these athletes that worked so hard to have their seasons wiped out when they had barely started. Hopefully something can also be done for winter sports.
Is it unfair for this year's juniors who would have been team leaders to be stuck behind a returning 6 yr senior class? Is it unfair for the incoming freshman expecting roster spots to have opened up? ..
This is a good point I had heard mentioned. What about a junior that was counting on the senior in front of them graduating and finally getting playing time (and exposure); is it also fair to grant them an extra year as well? The same question trickles down to all the underclassmen. I'm happy for those seniors affected, but this absolutely raises questions about the underclassmen affected as well.
As the OP mentioned, it sucks how the season ended for the winter sports athletes...but they completed the vast majority of their season. Seniors at Northwestern/Nebraska got eliminated from postseason play on Wednesday. Are they afforded the same chance at playing next year as the senior players who had their tournament postponed yesterday?
In my opinion the winter sports athletes will just have to live with the bitter ending of how this season concluded. Luckily, in sports like basketball they had the chance to experience senior night with their families.
I don't think telling them to just live with it is the right move. I am totally OK with giving Nebraska seniors another year. I don't see how this is more of a problem than telling Dayton seniors "great year, historic for your school, now just suck up the shitty ending."
With the increasing number of students on the 5-year plan anyway, limiting kids to four years of eligibility seems a bit of an anachronism to me. I'd be perfectly fine with five years of eligibility in general. Maybe something like 5-to-play-4, but a bonus year of each if you graduate in 4 years and are proceeding toward an advanced degree.
Also, I really don't understand the point of scholarship limits. With the transfer portal, kids are leaving anyway, so if you're worried about some school "stockpiling talent," well, the people who are getting stockpiled can go somewhere else if they want.
The NCAA basketball tournament is the pinnacle of sporting life for a large number of its participants. Give everybody another shot at the brass ring.
This is unprecedented, not saying at all “suck it up!” I feel for guys at Dayton and San Diego State. They both had historic years for their program, however I just don’t foresee the NCAA letting their seniors play another season because the last few games of the season got canceled. Think about it, Dayton could’ve lost their first game in the A10 tourney and lost in Rd 2 of the NCAA’s. Are they going to allow kids to play 30+ extra games for missing out on 3? I highly doubt it.
March 13th, 2020 at 10:53 PM ^
I really, really do not understand why it is such a big deal that some seniors get a bonus season after finishing theirs this year. The resistance to that idea baffles me. I wish someone would explain it. How is it such a bad thing, if guys who absolutely should have played in the tournament, never have, and now never will, get a second chance?? And this** would probably be the first time anyone's ever acted as if an NCAA tournament game is somehow equivalent to a regular season game. It's not just "missing out on three games." Doing so to justify not helping out a large-ish group of very screwed-over players is weird to me. They're momentous occasions for the participants and should be viewed as such now as well.
**this situation, not this post
Simpson and Tekse would be decent depth guys on next year's team.
Depth guys? Horrendously bad take.
I'm bullish on next season's team too, but it's ridiculous to say that the national assists leader from this year would be a "decent depth guy."
No, he would be the starting PG and would have even better talent around him than this year
I bet his assists would go up.
They'd have the same roles and play the same number of minutes as this year, almost certainly. No one is taking Simpson's spot. Very, very unlikely Dickenson or Todd take Teske's spot. Dickenson will have done well if he passes Davis for the backup spot. Centers without elite athleticism have a very hard time coming in and playing significant minutes at this level.
Todd would be competing to take Johns and Castleton minutes and maybe also Davis minutes (which should have been going to Johns more this past year).
So how is the scholarship situation going to work? I don't know what baseball/softball scholarship limits look like, but let's say this waiver gets granted to basketball players, and Teske/Simpson both decide they want to come back. Now you've got a really sticky situation. Because assuming the NCAA doesn't give a one-year hall pass to all schools on scholarship limits (which you know some schools would find a way to abuse the hell out of), Howard would have only one of two options:
1) Tell Teske/Simpson they need to pursue a grad transfer.
2) If they're both invited back, that's two more guys you're giving a firm handshake to and telling to hit the road. Howard won't be doing that with any of the incoming recruits, so who else gets the axe? You'd potentially be telling as many as four guys to go pursue other schools. No less than three if Jace becomes a walk-on.
Odds are none of this comes to pass and the NCAA just decides enough of the season was played to warrant not giving basketball players an exemption. It sucks, and its not how seniors deserve to go out by. But this is a completely unprecedented situation.
March 13th, 2020 at 10:55 PM ^
Just have Teske and Simpson not count against roster limits or schollie limits. I don't see that as being ripe for abuse because you would've had to plan for it last summer.
I hope they can figure out a way to make it work. From a player-centric perspective, it's obviously a good thing - an extra year to play, and another year of school if you want to take advantage. Especially since this semester is going to be all messed up by going online, an extra year on scholarship might be good for a player's future career outside of sports.
I'm not sure how many people would take advantage though - after 4 years, and a whole year of planning to move on, many may decide it's time to move on, like Charles Matthews decided last year. It's very hard to be a student-athlete and I think many will decide it's not worth it for one more season.
Finally, it would be interesting to see how it's executed. Most small schools probably don't have the scholarship room in their budget, so they may choose not to do this. I wonder if the NCAA, if they allow it, would make it mandatory for schools to bring back the seniors, even if they don't necessarily want to.
So far so good, but I think it's insane that I have to hold my breath whenever the NCAA has to make a decision about anything, even if it's dirt-simple open-and-shut.
I can't see how the minutes would work out if every college team had 15-20 players
That's why the coaches make the big bucks. :)
FWIW, I think they should give an extra year of eligibility to everybody over the next 5 classes at a minimum. I doubt they'll go that far, though.
-_-
Just because theyre coaches doesn't mean theyre miracle workers
You really think guys with legit talent but not elite are going to be happy playing 5 minutes per game? What about teams with 5 seniors and 5 incoming recruits. Do you know how big their roster would be?
Many players committed to schools knowing these seniors would be leaving and they would get that playing time. It would cause mass decommiting all across the country
March 13th, 2020 at 10:57 PM ^
Decommitting to go where....another school with extra seniors?
For me, the plight of freshmen having to wait a little bit longer for more playing time pales in comparison to the guys who should've gotten a chance to play in the tournament, and didn't.
March 13th, 2020 at 11:02 PM ^
I shouldn't have to state this but OBVIOUSLY they would decommit to go to a different school that has playing time for them.
For example, Hunter Dickenson is set to get good minutes at C next season but if Teske were to return then he wouldn't be getting many minutes. He may see this and then want to decommit and go to a school without a returning Senior Center do he can get good playing time
And this is just one of the minor issues with allowing these seniors to return for another season
March 14th, 2020 at 11:17 AM ^
Then there wasn't much attracting Dickinson to Michigan in the first place. If playing time (for just one season) trumps all other concerns to the point that they would actually decommit and go somewhere else, chances are that player was a future transfer anyway. In the world of advocating one consequence-free transfer because it's good for the players, the fact that they might actually use it doesn't register as a problem for me.
If this is "one of the minor" issues, what's the major one?
There's no way they could have decided this so quickly while taking everything into account and working out all the issues it causes. I feel like there's either some misinterpretation going on or the NCAA is panic-reacting and this will be walked back later.
Finally some positive news.
I think this is the right decision however it will create some weird dynamics next year. Do rising seniors also get another year of eligibility? Probably not, but that kinda sucks to have your senior season and maybe your first chance to start or get serious minutes get lost because the class above you got another season and you didn't. If they gave rising seniors another year too, that just screws rising juniors in the same way so I guess someone has to eat it. Just sucks for those athletes
X could average 12 assists/game next season...(bullish, and considering he gets a ton of minutes)
What does he need to become the all-time M leader?
For the sake of equity, I'd suggest that, for extra-eligibility seniors under this proposal, only postseason games should count toward career totals. Otherwise, the records are going to be out of reach. (X is already the career leader in games played).
Simpson is now at 667 assists. The record is Gary Grant's 731. So he's 64 away from tying and 65 from breaking.
If we had played 10 more games this season (4 BTT, 6 NCAAT), Simpson probably breaks it.
But if he gets to play another season, he has an outside shot at 1,000 assists.
The NCAA would have to make an amendment that you can carry more then 13 scholarship players. You as a coach are recruiting with those guys being graduated and gone.
I honestly hope it doesn't happen. As cool as it would be to have those guys back.
the Winter sports deserve the same!!! The season was NOT finished doesnt matter how far along it got ..However that said the NCAA rarely does the right thing
I’d rather see Cassius Winston move on.
These kids play b ball year around. Let March Madness and NCAA Wrestling and other winter sports have their finals in July if we get things under control.
This smells of unintended consequences making the decision a disaster
Do all players get a year of eligibility back? If so, there's a scholarship problem for years. If not, how is that equitable?
I hope so, and I don't see it as a scholarship problem. Scholarship limits are silly. If Michigan wants to have 27 scholarship players on the men's basketball team, why shouldn't they be able to do that? Their only value is to help colleges keep the cost of athletic programs down. I suspect scholarship limits would be found to be a violation of anti-trust law, if only we could get somebody with standing to sue.
No thank you ! So Zeb and Hunter can say they want out of their Letter of Intents ?
March 14th, 2020 at 12:29 PM ^
As much as I'd love to watch Simpson and Teske another year my love of watching Cassius Winston move on trump's it.