Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: The backlash of staying in school

Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports

Never mind the fact that making a NBA roster out of college is the toughest feat in all of pro sports.  Consider the fact that the NFL Draft has seven rounds and each NFL team has a roster of 53 players.  That means that at any moment, 1696 players have a NFL contract.  Forget baseball.  The draft is not even followed except by diehards and with the expanded 40 man roster, 1200 players have a MLB contract.  Never mind the 30 AAA teams in the US and 16 in Mexico.  Don’t forget the 30 AA teams and all of the “High A”, “Low A” and advanced rookie leagues.

Getting a job in the NBA as a rookie is a different monster.  There are 30 NBA teams that can sign 15 players.  That is 450 jobs.  For most players to consider leaving college for the NBA, they should be able to make the starting lineup of a NBA team or at least be in the top eight rotation.  That is 240 positions folks, and in this league, starters hang around for a decade or so usually, meaning there is really only about 30 players in the NBA draft that will step in and make an immediate impact.

And if you are a Kentucky Wildcats basketball player and not drafted in the first round after a year, the media has dubbed you a failure.

And for some reason, Andrew and Aaron Harrison have become the target and considered failures after just 53 games at Kentucky.

Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

Coming from a Louisville writer, that is rich. Louisville fans consider themselves the standard of college basketball and think that players leaving early is what is wrong with college basketball. Losing seven of eight to your bitter rival makes you go all kinds of crazy and makes you attack college players just for the sake of doing so.

But it’s not just UL fans that do it. Other media types have hoped on board. I like and respect Adam Zagoria, but even he is not immune to the calling out the Harrison twins for the NBA draft projections.

This all kind of proves what Calipari has said that Kentucky is college basketball. And if you are looking to challenge that, what better way to start than with a couple of college sophomores on an undefeated team?