Last night was one for the ages in men’s college basketball. No. 1 Kentucky squared off against No. 2 Michigan State, the earliest one-versus-two pairing in the history of college basketball, while fourth-ranked Duke played fifth-ranked Kansas. Fans like me salivated over the matchup that served as the big-stage unveiling of the much-hyped Jabari Parker. My ears are still ringing with the melodious sound of Dick Vitale’s raspy voice. For many, this would have been a fine showcase of the game of men’s college basketball being played at its highest level.

For me, however, it served as an indication of how drastically the college basketball landscape changes from year to year. Despite having followed the sport pretty closely until Louisville triumphed over Michigan in last season’s national championship game, I have to admit that I couldn’t recognize more than three quarters of the players on the floor at any given moment in last night’s proceedings. The culprit? The infamous “one-and-done” rule, which allows (or requires, depending on your mood) players to jump to the NBA after one year of play at the collegiate level.

Now, before I go any further, I want to be very clear that this column is not an opinion piece on the relative benefits and drawbacks of going to college versus jumping into professional sports. That argument, having already spawned reams and reams of literature, is not going to be conclusively resolved one way or another in our lifetimes. However, regardless of your views on the subject, if one looks at the situation objectively, there is no debate: The one-and-done rule stinks.

I am all for compromise, but in this case, the agreed-upon compromise between the NCAA and the NBA somehow manages to be the perfect compromise by the letter of the law that manages to wreck the spirit of the law in every possible way. If you are a proponent of players getting a good education before making the leap, then good for you! That is a very noble position to take. But just how much is a player going to get out of one abbreviated year of a college education? Bearing in mind that athletes have absurd practice and game schedules that eat into their student lives, it just seems farcical to assume that one year of education is enough to provide even lip service to the “education” that proponents of the rule tout.

On the flip side, if you support athletes’ rights to make their own decisions without being drowned in a sea of red tape and NCAA regulations, how exactly is the one-and-done rule fair to you? The MLB has no such rule in its encyclopedically large rulebook; players can be drafted straight out of high school, from abroad, after college, after three years of college and pretty much any time after they are legally allowed to work for a living.

The NFL, on the other hand, has a three-year rule, in which a player must be out of high school for three years before being eligible in the draft. Many athletes are cognizant of the fact that they will be using their prodigious athletic talents to make their way in the world from a very young age; as such, is it fair to bind them into a collegiate contract of sorts, forcing them to go to school when they could be making money and supporting their families in the big leagues?

Proponents of the rule argue that some education is better than none, and that the time players spend in college under their coaches only helps develop their game. My counter is that in education, you only get out what you put in, and if a player knows fully well that he is leaving for the NBA and will be drafted highly, what exactly is his incentive to put any effort into school?

If you just let players do what they want, a state of equilibrium will be reached. Those players who desire the college basketball experience will jump into it, those who are either talented enough or desired enough will go to the NBA and, hopefully, there will be fewer players declaring for the draft and regretting their decisions later on. As an added bonus, the continuity of college basketball will improve tenfold. There will be fewer instances of a full roster rebuild after a summer of graduation and NBA attrition.

The NCAA prides itself on (supposedly) being a bastion of both education and athletics, but in the case of men’s college basketball this is absolutely not true. Both education and athletics suffer as a result of the one-and-done rule, and as such, it should be torpedoed.

My suggestion? Let players do what they want. It is always a bad idea to try to force young folk to do what you want them to do. Let them make their own decisions and live by the consequences that follow.

Vignesh Venkataraman was planning on leaving Stanford to become a professional mridangam player, but he enjoyed his college experience of working at The Daily so much he decided to stay. Let him know if you agree with him foregoing potential revenue at viggy ‘at’ stanford.edu.