CBS Sports college basketball insiders Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander spent a month surveying 100-plus Division I men’s basketball coaches for our annual Candid Coaches series. They polled across the sport’s landscape: some of the biggest names in college basketball, but also small-school assistants in low-major leagues. Coaches agreed to share unfiltered opinions in exchange for anonymity. We asked 10 questions and are posting the results over a three-week span.
The 2024-25 NCAA calendar year is the final year that college athletes who played during the 2020-21 COVID-affected season can take advantage of a special additional tour of eligibility.
Prior to COVID, with rare exception, NCAA athletes had five years to complete four seasons of eligibility. The bonus COVID year has given athletes five years of eligibility, since the 2020-21 season was rife with coronavirus-prompted pauses, game cancellations and more. High-profile college basketball players who are utilizing a fifth year in ’24-25 include All-American candidates Mark Sears (Alabama), Johni Broome (Auburn), Hunter Dickinson (Kansas), RJ Davis (UNC) and Ryan Kalkbrenner (Creighton).
Over the past few years, two aftereffects of this COVID rule have significantly impacted college basketball. The good: The sport has been older on average over the past four seasons than it had been for decades prior to that. In general, the older the players, the better the basketball. The maybe-not-so-good: hyper-transfer activity has become a staple of college hoops, making the sport more difficult for the average fan to familiarize themselves with than ever before.
The portal is here to stay, of course; expect a thousand-plus players to hop in and explore their options annually moving forward. But what if there was a way to entice a bit more roster retention? There is a way, you know.
That in mind, we asked …
Should players get a fifth year…
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