None-and-done

And now for today's surgical tutorial, conducted with its usual lack of awareness by the NCAA, whose skill in one particular form of surgery is known to all.

On with How To Perform A Nose-ectomy, boys and girls!

In which this outrageously talented 7-1, 240-pound basketball player, James Wiseman, has surveyed the NCAA's college basketball landscape and decided "What do I need that for?" And so he's announced he's leaving Penny Hardaway's Memphis program to prepare for the 2020 NBA draft, after playing in just three games.

Hard to say if this career move was influenced by the NCAA's decision to declare him ineligible over something that happened before he was even in high school. But having to obtain a court injunction just to play in the three games he played could not have been a compelling argument to stick around. And so instead of being a one-and-done, Wiseman chose to be a none-and-done.

And once again the NCAA performs another successful nose-ectomy. cutting off its nose to spite its face.

Now, it's understandable why the generalissimos of college buckets get their shorts in a knot over the whole one-and-done phenomenon. No one, after all, enjoys having a lucrative product treated like some bus station waiting room. That's hardly the college game's fault, either; this one's on the NBA, which kicked college basketball in the twigs and berries 13 years ago with its absurd 19-year-old rule.

This meant that a kid with the skill set of a Zion Williamson or James Wiseman couldn't just enter the NBA draft right out of high school, as would happen in a saner world. They had to bide their time somewhere until they turned 19 -- and that somewhere naturally figured to be dear old State U.

Here's the thing though: If doing that treated the college product with something less than respect, it's also benefited it.

Hard to quantify how many extra eyeballs tuned in last winter to watch Zion Williamson ruin rims at Duke, but his presence couldn't have hurt the bottom line. Even if it was only for one season, he gave the college game one more thing to sell. And what's wrong with that?

Now, however, the college game has a new problem: More and more of those one-and-dones are deciding, like James Wiseman, that one-and-done-ing is a waste of time.

It's why you'll find former top college prospects LaMelo Ball and RJ Hampton biding their time, not at State U., but in Australia, where both are playing professionally until they turn 19. Why spend a season playing de facto pro ball, after all, when you can play the real thing? Why go through the whole charade of being a "student-athlete" when you can just be honest about it all?

And so how does the NCAA respond to that?

By treating the latest one-and-done like a criminal instead of a revenue stream. Brilliant.

Somebody take the scalpel away from these people. Please, for their sake.