Pros outweigh cons for Lowery, Watson

The SIU men’s basketball team redshirts nearly all of its players already, but that doesn’t mean two of its coaches aren’t willing to let the rest of the nation catch up.

The National Association of Basketball Coaches accepted an NCAA proposal earlier this month that would give all men’s basketball players an extra year of eligibility. With graduation rates a lingering issue in the sport for years, coaches and officials in the NCAA believe a fifth year of playing eligibility would encourage more student-athletes to graduate.

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NCAA President Myles Brand has thrown his full support behind the proposal, which still faces legislation and possible tweaking for at least a year.

First-year Saluki head coach Chris Lowery and longtime assistant coach Rodney Watson understand allowing a fifth year of eligibility has its pros and cons, but both seem to be in support of the measure.

“It’s kind of a double-edged sword because we redshirt a lot of kids, and they end up being here five years anyway, so obviously we would not have any problem with it,” Lowery said. “It would just take away from the negative stereotype of saying you are a redshirt and just not playing as a first-year freshman.”

Watson also supports the idea of adding a fifth year, saying it would be a “big, big victory for all college basketball players.”

“I think as a whole it is going to make college basketball better because not many people really understand the value of redshirting kids anyway; they want to play them right away,” Watson said. “For us selfishly, since we are kind of at that point with our program, it may in the long run hurt us a little bit because now everybody in essence is going to redshirt everybody as we used to know it.

“What it really does more than anything else is that we all talk about graduating student-athletes, but now we have given them a mechanism to really get that done. It is very tough to get anyone to graduate in four years. Now with five years, we have very little excuse.”

Despite the public support, Lowery and Watson have reservations about certain issues. One of Lowery’s concerns is the record books, which would more than likely be re-written if athletes are given five years to break traditional four-year records.

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Watson expressed a similar concern as Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim, who according to Andy Katz of ESPN.com stated he was uneasy about a possible transition year scenario in which a coach had eight underclassmen and five seniors. Katz poses the scenario that if all five seniors wanted to return for their fifth year, the team couldn’t pursue any recruits without exceeding the NCAA’s limit of 13 scholarships.

Although this scenario worries Watson, it is not enough to make him change his mind about the proposal.

“If that’s the toughest element that we have to worry about, then I think it’s a pretty good rule,” Watson said.

SIU Athletic Director Paul Kowalczyk said he has not studied the issue enough to comment on it and that he hasn’t had time to thoroughly discuss it with Lowery. The only thing he would say is that he’d “take a long look at it and see where it goes.”