Indiana AD Urges NBA to Lower Age Limit, Stop One-and-Dones

College basketball's one-and-done era may soon be, well, done.

Not a moment too soon, if you ask Indiana athletic director Fred Glass.

Two weeks ago, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced he's "rethinking" the NBA's age limit. Currently, the NBA draft is open to players only 19 or older, which has led some who would otherwise be drafted out of high school to spend a year in college.

In a radio appearance on "The Herd with Colin Cowherd," Silver indicated a desire for change and called for input from the college side.

"The so-called one-and-done players, I don't think it's fair to characterize them as going to one year of school," Silver said on Cowherd's show. "What's happening now, whenever they lose in or win the NCAA Tournament, that becomes their last day. In essence, it's a half-and-done. A half a school year, and then they go on."

Glass told The Journal Gazette on Tuesday that he opposes the current age limit and wants the NBA to lower it. Glass took over as the Hoosiers' AD three years after the league implemented its minimum age requirement starting with the 2006 draft.

"I'd like to see some model similar to baseball, if possible, where if you want to go straight into professional ranks, you can, and if you want to go to college you have some period during which you'd stay," Glass said. "In baseball, it's three years. I'd love it to be three years; maybe two years is the right number for basketball."

After the so-called one-and-done rule took effect, elite prospects such as Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, Derrick Rose and Anthony Davis were welcomed into the NCAA. Critics lamented the instability of the sport with high-end players staying only a season or two in college and claimed educators wasted their time on young men who would not graduate. Supporters believed better talent lifts the NCAA and that time in college helps prepare players for the next level on and off the court.

"I don't like the NBA requiring their kids to wait a year for a whole bunch of reasons," Glass said. "I think it would be a good thing for college basketball if the one-and-done rule went away."

As for the rule's impact on IU, Glass said he "doesn't deal a lot in hypotheticals." Without the current system, though, Davis likely would have skipped college. Instead, the lanky phenom helped Kentucky knock the fourth-seeded Hoosiers out of the 2012 NCAA tourney in the Sweet 16.

The Hoosiers themselves have had only two one-and-done guys: Eric Gordon and Noah Vonleh. The former left Bloomington after averaging 20.8 points in the 2008-09 season. Vonleh averaged 11.3 points and 9.1 rebounds in 2013-14. Both became lottery picks.

"(Former IU coach) Tom (Crean) didn't really build the program around one-and-dones," Glass said. "I wouldn't see (new coach) Archie (Miller) doing that, either. Certainly, programs against which we compete embraced it with both arms and maybe a leg, in some cases, but we weren't really big in the one-and-done market."

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