The scholarship is for an academic degree, not resume polishing for a professional athletic league. It's in the name.

That's a nice fantasy you are having, but for the elite athletes in the money sports, the scholarship has nothing whatever to do with an academic degree.

That presents a big problem because athletes are also living a fantasy where they all imagine going pro. Less than 1% of college football players go pro! Same order of magnitude for college basketball players.

You might be conflating college athletes with high school and middle school athletes.

By the time you reaches college, you typically:

1. have enough data to see how quickly you're improving;

2. are exposed to a much wider pool of talent than you were previously. Chances are there are many people at your level of athletics that are far better than you; and

3. are exposed to a much more difficult environment than high school and middle school. Combined with 1 and 2, many athletes lose the desire to work that hard for so long.

For athletes that aren't in the upper tier of college athletics, reality has set in even earlier.

Believe it or not, the vast majority of student athletes are not elite athletes that will go on to play professionally. There are only sixty players drafted to the NBA each year, even at powerhouse schools like Duke, most players on the team know that they're not going to play professionally.

Those money sports are wallowing in billions of dollars. They can afford their own farm leagues for anyone not good enough out of high school.

Academic degrees. Athletes in their 5th or 6th year (redshirt and whiteshirt) can continue their education in graduate school, and many do.

Probably wouldn't be many who would take advantage of such an offer. Basketball players are much more likely to enter the NBA draft before graduation than football players are. The coaches of those that aren't good enough to be drafted likely are ready to use that scholarship slot for someone new. There may be a small number of players who are better than any recruit but not good enough to be drafted but not enough to make a policy around.

It doesn't affect student athletes all that much. There will still be a draft, as always.

The draft affects a relatively small amount of college athletes.

So what else do you think they are losing from not having a tournament?

The opportunity to play at the highest level they'll ever play at?

So, bragging rights? Not exactly worth staying in school for an entire year for that. And what's the guarantee they actually get to play in the tournament next year?

Whoever came up with the term “student athlete” when talking about slaves in college is a genius!

I like to think if that term never existed then maybe society wouldn’t let universities exploit them for millions of dollars while paying them nothing.

I see you removed your earlier racist comment about student athletes being slaves and decided to double down and write it again. So I’ll double down too - you should be banned for this comment.

The compensation model for college athletics is problematic but the entire system is voluntary. You diminish the evilness of slavery by trivializing it by equating it to college students playing a game of their own free will.

If someone can make a profit from these games the players become slaves?

If they play the same game but no one makes money they are free?

Why? These things happen, it’s life.

Except the NCAA tournament has been around since 1939 and never been canceled. Neither has the NIT, which started in 1938 and was considered the preeminent tournament until the 50’s.

So really, what’s decided regarding eligibility will set the precedent going forward. Hopefully it won’t ever have to be referenced though.