Bowing to Seniority :: Documentary Journalism Sports Basketball Papers

Bowing to Seniority With the dearth of good centers in college basketball, one would expect that Xavier University would want David West, their All-American center who averaged 20 points and 10 rebounds per game as a junior, to return for his senior season. But West did not feel so welcome. â€Å"Honestly, it felt like they wanted me to leave,† West said. â€Å"Not Coach [Thad] Matta specifically, but most people seemed to be pushing me out the door [to the NBA].† Eventually, West decided to return for his senior season, and then became part of a dying breed: college seniors who get drafted in the first round of the NBA draft. In the last two NBA drafts, high school players and college underclassmen outnumbered the college senior first round picks 19-13, with only four college seniors going in the first round in the June 2004 draft. In 1999, 13 seniors went in the first round. The number of lottery picks (teams who do not make the playoffs, the first 14 picks of the draft) shows the disparity more clearly with more underclassmen being drafted in the lottery by an 11 to 5 margin. Before the New Orleans Hornets took West with the 18th pick of the 2003 NBA Draft, he had a successful senior season at Xavier, where he was an All-American and the Associated Press Collegiate Player of the Year. As little as eight years ago, West probably would have been a top five pick; as prospects were still valued more for their ability to contribute right away rather than their â€Å"potential.† But because of what Mississippi State University Coach Rick Stansbury calls a â€Å"disturbing trend,† that of underclassmen entering the draft with greater and greater frequency, West fell completely out of the lottery. Some argue that the slide through the draft of seniors like West has to compete with not only the increase of college underclassmen entering the draft, but also international prospects who have the â€Å"upside† to be superstars, even though many teams have seen very little of them actually play. However, West does not think that the international players have affected the draft that much. "If you can play, you can play," said West. "I'm not worried about what (European) guys can do. American guys have shown what they can do. In the end, if you can play, they're not going to let you go." Over the past 10 years, the mindset of the NBA prospect has changed.