When former Syracuse forward Mark Konecny decided to pull a Charlie Brown and go home, he didn’t just take his ball.

He took a basketball scholarship too.

The reason – the NCAA’s 5/8 recruiting rule, which limits teams to five scholarship recruits in one year and eight over a two-year period. Division I coaches are upset at the rule, which they feel unfairly penalizes schools when players leave.

Over the summer, the NCAA temporarily amended the rule so that teams can recruit nine players rather than eight over a two-year span. That, however, hasn’t stopped the rankling.

Konecny’s departure, for example, means that Syracuse not only loses one of its 13 allowed scholarship players, but the scholarship also counts against the team next year. SU gave out five scholarships to the recruiting class of 2001. Only three new players can join the Orange in 2002 for the team to keep under the 13-scholarship limit.

The loss of Konecny, compounded by Billy Edelin’s dismissal from the team and Greg Davis’ potential transfer, leaves the Orangemen in danger of being significantly undermanned. Regardless of how many players leave, Syracuse will only have a fixed number of scholarships with which to replace them and the departing seniors.

‘We have a guy who is leaving, and there is nothing we can do about it,’ SU coach Jim Boeheim said in reference to Konecny. ‘That scholarship is gone, and we’re stuck with fewer players because of it. It’s a tough rule.’

Syracuse isn’t the only school that’s stuck, and Boeheim isn’t the only one voicing his opinion.

Arizona, Texas Tech and Minnesota are all playing with 10 or fewer scholarship players this season due to NBA defections or player transfers.

The Wildcats, which lost three NBA-bound underclassmen from last year’s Final Four team, play this year with a roster that falls three men short. Because of the 5/8-induced player famine, head coach Lute Olsen asked Peter Hansen, a 6-foot-8 senior tight end, to join the basketball team as a forward at the end of football season.

Hansen’s addition to the basketball team only exhibits how the 5/8 rule – designed mainly to keep players from transferring – only hurts schools that annually produce professional-level talent, Arizona assistant coach Josh Pastner said.

‘It’s not a good rule,’ Pastner said. ‘It really hurt us last year, with all the guys we had leaving for the NBA. We definitely weren’t running those players off – we were begging them to stay. But they had gotten to such a high level, in part because the coaches do a good job getting them ready for that next level. So in a way it’s like, you do a good job coaching and you get penalized for it.’

When the NCAA Division I Working Group, a council created to address basketball issues, passed the 5/8 rule in April of 2000, the legislation was designed to stop coaches from ‘running off’ ineffective players, SU Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw said.

Shaw, a chairman on the board that recommended the rule, mentioned the difficulty of determining whether or not a player is actually being persuaded to transfer.

‘Let’s put it this way,’ the chancellor said, ‘say you are a freshman and your goal in life is to play intercollegiate basketball, and your coach says ‘You can stay here as long as you want … but you’re not going to start.’ Is that coach trying to drive him out or is he trying to be honest? The nuances are so gray that you could never prove it.’

Boeheim, though, sees more of a black and white picture.

‘People who tell you that (coaches run players off) are full of it,’ Boeheim said. ‘I’ve never run a player off, and this rule won’t stop players from transferring. I have never heard of another coach doing it either. Categorically, it doesn’t happen.

‘This rule is based on a false premise. And as long as you have rules based on false premises, you have bad rules. This is a bad rule.’

The NCAA board of directors seems to have heard the complaints. Sort of.

After a year of constant pressuring from basketball coaches, the board reworked the rule so that it allows for a maximum of nine recruits in a two-year period rather than eight. The amended ‘5/9’ rule started this season and continues next year. After 2002-2003 season, the 5/8 limit will return.

The recent legislative actions indicate that the NCAA’s rulemaking bodies understand that their initial changes were too sudden, ESPN college basketball expert Andy Katz said.

‘By changing the rule, I think they are admitting that they should have phased it in more gradually,’ Katz said. ‘But I don’t understand why you have to have a restriction like that at all.

‘If you can only have 13 scholarships, then you can only have 13 scholarships. That number is kind of a restriction as is. I know of a couple cases where coaches have run players off, but I don’t think that should result in a rule that punishes 317 teams.’

Texas Tech and Minnesota are two of the teams facing punishment, even after the formal penalties from earlier probations have ended.

The Golden Gophers start the season with 10 scholarship players, mainly because of the rash of transfers that coincided with their coaching changes and a recent NCAA rules violation involving an academic scandal.

Meanwhile in Lubbock, Texas, new Red Raider head coach Bob Knight will be four scholarships short this year. When Knight joined the program, just four of the nine players eligible to return from last year’s squad actually stuck around for a turn with the General, known for his strict disciplinary methods.

Texas Tech was one of the 16 schools to apply for temporary relief from the 5/8 rule. Yet, at the school year’s start, every appeal had been rejected.

‘It’s a bad rule,’ said Eddie Sutton, head coach at fellow Big 12 school Oklahoma State. ‘I think if you really analyze it, you’ll see that there is no way to appeal it. There is no way to get an exemption, even if you lose a lot of players or have some unusual circumstances.’

Shaw agrees that the rule needs further modification.

‘I don’t think that it’s right,’ he said about the pattern of rejections. ‘It almost guaranteed that people would be clamoring to eliminate the rule. I think the circumstances ought to be that, if (a player) leaves in good standing, it shouldn’t be counted.’

Duke created an unusual method of its own to cleverly avoid the five-player limit for one season. Take a look at Duke’s No. 1 ranked recruiting class for the 2002 season and you’ll see six new players. Why?

Head coach Mike Krzyzewski convinced Lee Melchionni, a blue-chipper from Fort Washington, Pa., and a lifelong Duke fan, to walk-on to the team for his freshman year.

With the tighter restrictions on the size of recruiting classes, other universities would be wise to follow suit – provided such a coup can be duplicated, Pittsburgh assistant coach Ernie Zeigler said.

‘Well, I think that Duke sets the bar that we’re all striving toward,’ Zeigler said. ‘They’ve been very innovative with their recruiting, and they’ve started something that everyone else might try and follow.’

On the recruiting hierarchy, Syracuse actually isn’t far behind the harbingers from Tobacco Road. The same recruiting list that ranks the Blue Devils first, compiled by ESPN’s David Benezra and Mark Mayemura, positions the Orangemen third.

SU can thank ultra-talented forward Carmelo Anthony, from Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., for much of its lofty ranking. With a player of Anthony’s caliber – much like with Eddie Griffin, Corey Maggette or Stephon Marbury – questions about the player’s length of stay always arise. Because of the 5/8 rule, teams are taking a bigger risk by recruiting players who may only stay for one season, Boeheim said.

‘I think it was (Boeheim) who said ‘Let’s go out there and get good, four-year players rather than a guy who might just be here for a year,’ ‘ SU assistant Mike Hopkins said. ‘Say you get someone like a Marbury, you build your program around him and then after a year he is gone.’

Katz, however, said players such as Anthony will never have trouble finding suitors.

‘The thinking has to be that, once you get a player on campus, anything can happen,’ he said. ‘If you have a tremendous talent, it’s definitely worth the risk. Even if (that player) only stays for one year.’

Although the 5/8 rule will not revolutionize recruiting, Division I coaches see the NCAA edict as a pesky roadblock to building a deep team. NCAA officials indicate that their rule was only designed to prevent forced transfers and promote higher graduation rates.

While the NCAA accomplished its goal, Sutton said, the rule fails to account for other reasons that players may leave a program.

‘Coaches don’t run players off,’ the OSU coach said. ‘The perception is wrong. I think the NCAA looks at it and sees all the transfers, and they came up with this rule to try and stop it. But players leave for all sorts of reasons, and they will continue to leave.’

Published on December 5, 2001 at 12:00 pm