John Wall's academic excellence sparks a debate about one-and-dones

John Wall's academic excellence sparks a debate about one-and-dones

Wednesday, Jul. 21, 2010 - 3:34 p.m. ET

The whole debate about one-and-done basketball players took a tricky turn Tuesday when the University of Kentucky announced All-America point guard John Wall earned inclusion on the Southeastern Conference Freshman Academic Honor Roll.

To receive that distinction, an athlete must maintain a 3.0 grade average and pass at least 24 credit hours.

Which doesn't fit with the whole one-and-done image of a basketball player who stops showing up for class once he's earned playing privileges for the second semester.

And so I declared with a post on Twitter as I worked late into the evening on Tuesday:

Tsnmike: So all the people squawking about one-and-dones not going to class in spring -- how does that reconcile with John Wall on SEC honor roll?

As often is the case on Twitter, that declaration did not allow me to have the last word.

Upon punching up my Twitter account at about 7 a.m. Wednesday, I was greeted with these consecutive tweets from my colleague Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com:

GaryParrishCBS: @tsnmike Isn't your point about Wall the equivalent of determining that college basketball coaches don't cheat b/c Brad Stevens is clean?

GaryParrishCBS: @tsnmike I mean, hats off to @jimmywa11. What he did is awesome. But he's clearly the exception, not the rule.

That's a convenient device in an argument: What doesn't fit my position has got to be the exception. And so I tweeted:

Tsnmike: @GaryParrishCBS @jppalm Don't know if he's the exception. Neither do people making the assumption that EVERYBODY cuts out.

I hadn't planned on a Twitter battle so early in the morning, or at any point in the day, but I did feel compelled to defend myself.

Parrish made the point Kentucky had four freshmen who were one-and-done and suggested only one was a "real student" in the spring. I countered that my information was that three of the four completed their spring semester classes.

GaryParrishCBS: @tsnmike "Finishing semester" and being a real student are two totally different things.

Tsnmike: @GaryParrishCBS Who decides who is a real student? How many "real" students are asked to travel the entire month of March and still keep up?

It went on longer from there than you might imagine. You can read through the entire exchange at Twitter.com. I've long been an advocate of the NBA draft age limit because I believe it is best for the game of basketball at all levels: NBA, college, high school.

Although I understand it's possible for NBA-bound freshmen to blow off spring classes, the concern about this seems disproportionate to the issue. Because of APR concerns, colleges have the incentive to keep these players engaged academically. Age limit opponents who flog this issue also ignore the reality that freshmen could just as easily skip spring classes when there was no age limit in place.

When Carmelo Anthony, Corey Maggette and Gerald Wallace left their campuses after a single year, however, no one used the term "one-and-done" to describe them – and there was no Twitter to discuss their decisions.

http://www.sportingnews.com/college-basketball/article/2010-07-21/john-walls-academic-excellence-sparks-debate-about-one-and-don