The Athletic reported this week about a new player coming to play for Rick Pitno.  He is 23 years old and has been playing the past several years on a professional international team. He's making his way to Queens because he'll be making over $4 million per season, a big raise from his current salary.  Under current conditions, this player can remain in college until his late 20's.  Not exactly what one thinks of when they're thinking about college basketball.

A proposed "5 in 5" rule would bring far more predictability and hopefully, stabilization to the sport.  College eligibility will either begin upon high school graduation or a player's 19th birthday, whichever happens first.  They will have five years of college eligibility rather than 4; however, the window to remain as a college player will only last 5 years (there would be exceptions for military service, religious missions and pregnancies).  Say goodbye to most redshirts and medical waivers.   

The stabilization would be greatly magnified if a separate rule limiting the number of times a player can transfer without siting out a season to just once.  Without this, we could still see some players playing for 5 schools in 5 years.  While player advocates will cry that limiting player movement translates to limiting player opportunities financially, I would argue this several ways.  First, schools can start building financial incentives for players to stay at their current school rather than move around.  Obviously, this doesn't fully solve the issue.  If UNC would like one of GW's players, they will outbid us plain and simple.  But, maybe GW keeps a player with that bonus rather than see him go to say DePaul.  Second, this will make it much easier on incoming freshmen who aside from the stars in the sport have been losing playing time to more experienced transfers early on in their college careers.  And third, to those few out there who care about things like academics, socialization, and a more normalized college experience, diminishing the thought of having to switch schools every year or two can only be considered a good thing.