Bill Self: No point in making freshmen sit out

Kansas guard Devonte Graham laments some sloppy play by the Jayhawks during the second half, Monday, Feb. 23, 2015 at Bramlage Coliseum.

Manhattan ? There’s been recent talk about college basketball perhaps returning to the days when freshmen were ineligible to play in games until their second year on campus.

“I think it’d be awful,” KU coach Bill Self said Monday on the Big 12 coaches call about the return to freshmen ineligibility. “There’d have to be so many rules that change in order to have a rule like that.

“I’m not saying it would be awful for everybody, because the majority of players are not one-and-done guys. But you can’t make kids go to college for a year and not let them play. There would have to be something done there. You’d have to let the kids go out of high school now (to NBA). There’d be far less kids going to school that should be in school because they’re thinking, ‘You got to wait two years to go (play in college)?’ There’d be more kids going overseas instead of going to school if the rules stayed the same. I don’t like it at all.”

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He continued … “I know it worked a period of time back in the 60s and maybe early 70s or even before that. I can’t see in today’s climate how that would be good for our game and good for the overall betterment of student-athletes. At least now, kids come to school for a year. We had Joel Embiid last year. I can’t even imagine him not getting a year of schooling in and being thrown to the wolves like he has been, or like all the guys have been when they leave (for NBA).

“If they change the rule to two eventually (proposed rule that players who go to college must stay in school two years before being eligible for draft), which I don’t know if there’s a lot of legs with that right now, if they change the rule you have to be in school two years, then I think that would be a positive thing even if they let kids go out of high school, but to say that no freshmen could play? I don’t see how that’s a step in a positive direction, best for our game and best for the well-being of student athletes. I don’t see that,” Self added.