'One and done' debate rages on

What is the obligation a coach who is being paid $5 million or so has to his school, to his fans and, most important, to his players?

That’s what Bo Ryan was getting at in the aftermath of Monday night’s thrilling — but chilling — national championship loss by his Wisconsin Badgers to Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke Blue Devils.

Here are Ryan’s words:

“All the seniors that I’ve had — hard to say the word. But every player that’s played through the program, OK, we don’t do a rent-a-player. You know what I mean? Try to take a fifth-year guy. That’s okay. If other people do that, that’s OK. I like trying to build from within. It’s just the way I am. And to see these guys grow over the years and to be here last year and lose a tough game, boom, they came back.”

To some, it seemed like the Wisconsin coach had become “Cryin’ Ryan,” especially when mixed in with comments about so many calls that went against him — if one can imagine a coach finding officiating in the college game lousy.

But, he had a point.

Is this trend toward rent-a-players, or one-and-done players if you prefer, a good thing for the sport, be they freshmen or fifth-year graduate seniors?

Certainly, it is nothing new … but with Kentucky rushing to a national title last year and gaining the reputation of building its program that way (even though three of the players did return this year) and with the Wildcats following the same blue print through 38 undefeated games, followed by Duke using the same philosophy to take this year’s crown it is guaranteed to be followed by more and more schools.

Somehow, in an era where there has been a push for the schools to give out full-term scholarships rather than the one-year contracts they used to have, when they have agreed to pay full cost of attendance in those scholarships, it seems to be going against the flow for the big boys of the game to be willing and able to bring in the best players prep schools and AAU ball can turn out with the idea of winning for me this year then walking away.

And, to have it become the modus operandi of that paragon of basketball ethics, Coach K, at a school that considers itself a southern fried Ivy League school just kind of grinds at you the wrong way.

When did college stop being a place where you went for an education? When did it become a trade school like the downtown beauty college? Why should a player have to study or pass an educational course if he is only planning on being in school for a year?

These are, of course, rhetorical questions, for it doesn’t matter what the answer to them may be.

One and done is what we have evolved into as college’s main life lesson is to first make money and second to win with no regard for such a thing as competitive balance or, even, fairness in the rules.

In an effort to level that playing field, the NCAA has granted the five power conferences a world unto itself, but it was done not out of any inner wisdom but instead with a loaded gun pointed at the organization, the power conferences surely willing to go off and create their own group if not given their way.

But within those power conference there remains a pecking order, one that allows Duke or Kentucky or Kansas to stockpile the best players in the country and beyond while a TCU or a Wake Forest or, yes, West Virginia has to really coach … build a program that is built less on unbeatable talent and more on the strength of working together over a period of time.

Bob Huggins here at WVU, a coach who is almost certainly Hall of Fame bound, has talked often of never having been at a place where he could pick who he wants, of recruiting to his system, but instead of having to go out and get the best players he could and build a system to fit them.

He’s had one and done players, yes, but the heart of his success has come via experienced players, often transfers or junior college players, rather the crème de la crème that a Duke or Kentucky or North Carolina or so many others are able to accommodate for a season in the sun.

That he would do such an amazing job of building his team that he would earn a national Coach of the Year honor on the same day Kentucky’s horde of future NBA stars would crush his Mountaineers, 78-39, speaks louder to this issue than anything anyone else could ever say.