Savannah State Tigers

LSU's Ben Simmons is a product of the contradiction that is college sports

Published Mar. 5, 2016 3:49 p.m. ET

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ESPN reported on Saturday morning that LSU star freshman forward and presumptive No. 1 pick Ben Simmons was not eligible for the Wooden Award because of academic reasons.

On Saturday afternoon, Ben Simmons took the floor for LSU at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky., aiming for a big-time win over Kentucky that the Tigers desperately needed to have a Hail Mary chance at being an at-large team in the NCAA tournament.

What is wrong with this picture?

A rational person could assert that Simmons' ineligibility for one of college basketball's player of the year awards ought to make him ineligible to play college basketball. Eligibility standards, you'd think, would be nationwide and standardized, the same for an award as at his school. And these standards, you'd think, ought to be pretty black and white. In this way of thinking, Simmons being eligible for a game but not for an award makes no sense -- as it made no sense in February when an academic issue had head coach Johnny Jones sit Simmons for the first few minutes of an SEC game, but, strangely, not the entire game.

A different and equally rational person could assert that Simmons only being ineligible for one of the half-dozen player of the year awards exposes a major flaw in the Wooden Award's standards but not necessarily in the rest of the system. This is the view taken by the Sporting News' Mike DeCourcy: "It is not an especially difficult standard to meet, but failure to achieve it should be the athlete's problem," DeCourcy writes. "If he falls short, he is the one who has mishandled an opportunity to advance his education. But an award that supposedly is designed to honor the best player in college basketball ought not to have the by-product of shaming another."

Both views are correct.

LSU Tigers forward Ben Simmons slam dunks against the Kennesaw State Owls.

How about this third view, one that has implications that go far beyond one star player being ineligible for one big award:

The dissonance we have here -- of Simmons playing in LSU's most important game of the season hours after it was reported he was ineligible for college basketball's top individual honor â underscores the biggest hypocrisy going in American sports.

Every year, dozens of men's college basketball players begin their freshman years of college with realistic dreams that, less than a year from the moment they step onto campus, Adam Silver will call their name, and they'll become newly minted NBA millionaires. For some, that realistic dream comes true. For others, it can be postponed a year or two, perhaps dashed altogether. But what's the point in going to class and getting decent grades when you know there's a really good chance -- or, in Simmons' case, a certainty -- those classes are not going to matter? You can't blame a single one of these one-and-done kids who, once their first semester of college switches to their second and final semester of college, say, "Screw this, I'm just playing ball."

It's the natural byproduct of two things:

- An NBA rule (not a college hoops rule!) that forces possible draftees to be out of high school for at least one year until they are eligible for the draft. The NBA loves the one-and-done rule. It gives teams a full year to watch an elite talent play against big-time competition before spending millions on him. It's an extended, risk-free tryout the NBA pays nothing for.

- A college sports system that brings in literally billions of dollars a year, pays coaches millions, yet holds onto the pretension of amateurism, and of academics being linked directly to sports.

Don't blame LSU and Johnny Jones for letting Simmons play despite questionable at best academics. In the immortal words of Ohio State's Cardale Jones, Simmons "ain't come here to play school." He came here because he doesn't have any other realistic option, though he would have been a certain top-five pick in last year's NBA draft. (If you want to pretend playing overseas for a year after high school is a realistic option, ask Brandon Jennings about his experience.) Nor should you blame the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the organization that sponsors Wooden Award, for having academic standards; the idea of one-and-done players attending "college" is a lie, but at least the Wooden Award is paying lip service to that lie.

And don't blame Kentucky's John Calipari, the college coach most associated with one-and-done players, either. Calipari is merely a man of these odd times. In fact, Calipari is the best thing a one-and-done player could get in college basketball today. He isn't hypocritical about the bargain. He holds annual pro days for solely Kentucky players, for God's sake. The guys who ought to leave for the NBA after one season, Cal encourages them to leave, even though he'd reap the benefits if they returned. He has even lobbied the university to have financial management classes specifically for players like Karl-Anthony Towns and Jamal Murray who are certainties to become millionaires after one season.

Instead, blame Saturday's dissonance -- the dissonance of Ben Simmons being academically ineligible for a major award while being academically eligible to play in an important game -- on the oddball system we have set up in America (and only in America). The marriage of big money and pretend amateurism is the unholiest marriage in all of sports. There are so many -- so many! -- young American men who benefit from this unholy marriage: Young men who use their excellence in basketball to get a free college education that will help them succeed in the rest of life. Young men who use the big-time platform of college basketball as a way to develop their game, and as an extended tryout for the NBA or for international ball. Young men from small-time colleges who won't even sniff at professional basketball but just really want to keep playing the game, because they love the game.

The unholy marriage of big-money athletics and academics has plenty of winners.

But in the cruelest of ironies, it's the most talented players inside this system -- the one-and-done players like Ben Simmons, the talents who ought to be playing in an NBA game today instead of at Rupp Arena -- who are the biggest losers.

Follow Reid Forgrave on Twitter @reidforgrave or email him at ReidForgrave@gmail.com.