Rival Views: Which rule change will have a bigger impact?

Two very important rule changes appear to be in the works and both figure to have significant -- at least in the short term -- impacts on college basketball and recruiting. One is what appears to be the growing likelihood that the NBA will once again let players enter the Draft right out of high school and the other is the NCAA looking like they are going to allow instant eligibility for transfers. Which rule will have the greater impact? As usual Rivals.com National Basketball Analysts Eric Bossi and Corey Evans have Rival views.

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Beginning with the high school class of 2006, the NBA said American players could no longer enter the NBA Draft directly after high school. The league began to require that players be a year removed from high school and turn 19 (or older) during the year they applied for the draft. This rule change ushered in the one-and-done era.

Between the 2007 and 2017 NBA Drafts, 97 freshmen were selected in the first round. In every year but 2009 during that span, a freshman was chosen No. 1. It all culminated in the 2017 draft, where 10 of the first 11 picks were one-and-dones and there were 16 total in the first round. In 2018, there will likely be 10 or more freshmen who go in the first round. That's a lot of firepower to be losing.

Now, the truth is that most of the firepower is going to a small number of schools. Duke and Kentucky have combined for 28 since 2010, Kansas has had several, so has UCLA among others. The trend isn't slowing.

In the grand scheme of things, 10-15 players a year doesn't really hurt college basketball as a whole. But, allowing kids to go straight out of high school is going to move that number into the 20 range -- especially with teams able to offer fairly lucrative "two-way" contracts to develop players in the G League -- and then we'll start to feel an impact. Players that the bluebloods didn't turn to until they missed on five-star talents, will now be prioritized by higher profile programs. It will result in a trickle down effect throughout college basketball and it will make it harder for programs at the mid-level or on the bubble between the mid- and high-major level to get players that can be difference-makers for them.

Of course, much of this is going to depend on exactly how the NBA alters its rules. But, there's no way elite level programs aren't going to have to change their recruiting habits if kids are once again allowed to go straight to the NBA from high school.

The NCAA allowing for instant eligibility after transferring schools would be a total game-changer. While the eradication of the one-and-done rule may only directly impact a handful of teams, the new transfer rule would affect virtually every program in college basketball.

More than 800 players transferred this past year at the Div. I level and that number could double if non-grad transfers are given immediate eligibility. No longer would a player have to consider sitting out a year as a drawback to transferring and could potentially hear recruiting pitches non-stop throughout their career.

UNC-Asheville is a good example of how the transfer epidemic can hurt programs. Over the past four offseasons, the Big South program has lost its top producers, ones that decided to leave for Louisville, Arizona, Marquette and LSU. The same could be said for Mount St. Mary’s as head coach Jamion Christian has lost his top stars to Texas, Miami, Kansas State and Coastal Carolina. These programs are the minority now, but with an unregulated transfer market, they soon could be joined by a slew of others.

College basketball is set to change and in a drastic fashion should this rule come to be.