Nebraska basketball: How proposed changes could alter the NCAA

It’s hard to know how the Nebraska basketball team would be affected by the removal of “one and done” players.

The biggest part of the suggested rule changes issued by the Pac 12 is that the NCAA and the NBA would cooperate in a way that would get rid of the “one and done” players. These are players that generally aren’t part of the Nebraska basketball program, but that doesn’t mean a rule change here wouldn’t affect the Cornhuskers.

The report asks that the NBA drop the requirement that a player has to be 19 and one year removed from high school in order to be drafted. The conference has also asked the NBA to refrain from drafting players that are three years removed from their high school graduation.

The NBA has been talking about getting rid of the age and one-year requirement all on it’s own. It doesn’t appear there have been talks about increasing the number of years a player would have to be out of high school before they could be drafted.

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The Pac 12 is also looking for the NCAA to loosen it’s restrictions on players who declare for the draft. The new rules have a provision which states that would “allow a drafted player who chooses
not to sign a professional contract to remain fully eligible.”

Later on in the draft rules, the conference says it would like to make it so that a player can get an agent and still stay eligible. This is apparently all aimed at making sure that a player doesn’t attempt to jump to the NBA until they are really ready.

The Cornhuskers have just one player on the current roster who might make the jump to the NBA early in James Palmer Jr. It should be noted that even if this new rule was adopted tomorrow and took effect immediately, Palmer would qualify as being three years out of high school.

Where these changes might affect the Nebraska basketball team the most, is that teams like Michigan State and Purdue could hold onto players that might otherwise jump ship after one year. So, it’s hard to get fully behind this rule, though it seems to be better for college basketball as a whole.