Two or none conundrum

The best of it, of course, is on display right now.

Again Loyola hits the big shot for its 98-year-old darling, Sister Jean, and on to the Elite Eight the Ramblers go in a storybook run that has seen them win three NCAA Tournament games by a total of four points.

And there goes Kentucky out of Da Tournament, excused by a Kansas State team that finished fourth in its conference.

And so long, Gonzaga, and, hello, again, Florida State, which is on to the Elite Eight as a team that finished tied for eighth in its conference.

That's an 11 seed and two 9 seeds one win away now from the Final Four, if you're keeping count. And if it tells us nothing more about the landscape of college basketball these days, it's that the game may not be the doomed creature we've been led to believe it is. It may, in some ways, be better than it's ever been.

To be sure, there's still a one-and-done basketball factory out there -- Duke remains in this thing, after all -- but what we've learned in the last week is it's not the one-and-done factories like Duke and Kentucky that drive the game. It's the Loyolas and the Kansas States and the Florida States.

Which does not mean schools do not still pursue the one-and-dones, and that the pursuit does not plumb the depths of every ethical swamp there is. If what's happening in the Madness represents the best of college buckets, what's happening on those FBI wiretaps represents the worst. And to one degree or another it's always been happening, going all the way back to the point-shaving scandals that rocked the sport in the early 1950s.

That makes doing something about it hugely problematical.

The latest plan, concocted by an NCAA commission chaired by Condoleeza Rice and endorsed so far by the Pac-12 and the Big East, is for college basketball to replace the one-and-done with a two-or-none policy, and to create an "elite player unit" that will more closely monitor "players with realistic aspirations of playing in the NBA."  Like most grand schemes cooked up in a boardroom, this sounds great until you start wondering how exactly it will work.

Here's the thing: The two-or-none plan basically says a prospective college player, in order to play college basketball, must be contractually obligated to stay two years. Any player who opts to test the waters of the NBA draft, meanwhile, forfeits any future college eligibility.

This is basically the NCAA finally playing hardball with the NBA, which launched its absurd you-have-to-be-19 rule without an eyeblink of consideration for what this would do to college basketball, its de facto farm system. That the NCAA's much-belated response will hurt the NBA not at all, of course, is a given. As with most NCAA decrees, only the kids will truly pay the price.

If, in fact, any of this is actually feasible.

Contracts, after all, are made to be broken. College basketball coaches break them all the time jumping from one school to another, and never pay the price for doing so. And so if a young man  signs on to the two-or-none deal, then makes a significant jump and decides after one year he's ready for the NBA, what can his school possibly do about it? Garnish his rookie deal?

Yeah. Love to see how quickly that would wind up in court.

No, all the NCAA can do is tell a kid who tests the NBA waters the door is closed to him if it doesn't work out. And who does that hurt? The kid, of course. Not to mention how it once again gives the lie to the notion that the NCAA is all about providing opportunities and opening doors that otherwise might be closed.

Gee, kid, didn't get drafted? That's a shame. So what's next for you? College? Sorry, kid, but we can't help you there now. Hit the bricks, son.

And the beat goes on.