A couple of a things-
To answer the question plain and simple yes the teams with more 5th years are better than others. SU, ND and NW and UNC have many of them. With that said, that is the rules that NCAA allowed so who really cares. The interesting part of this comes in coming years when “extra”money as it did this year paid for the over and above scholarship for the 5th years. Many coaches will be taking money from other players to fund the current seniors for their 5th year. Many schools top players are true seniors that need to be funded by 12.6 that was spent on 2021 coming in as 2017 were supposed to be graduating. Should be fun to watch this balancing act. For example is UNC not going to fund JO, SG, AM, TM, ET. They sure will as will other top schools.
As far as stat padding-let’s look at how bad these coaches are that these kids are playing against. My god have you watched any film on the player. Has any of them heard of a Shut off? a early slide? a players tendency? When she pulls way out we are doubling immediately? a player usually goes this way? a player has 2 assist and 200 goals-so they are pretty committed to shooting and not passing? I would
Like to see a scouting report of these coaches. This is u-9 stuff .
Come on. Do your job.
I think the NCAA's decision to grant an additional year will hurt what I would call (for lack of a better term) 2nd tier HS players for the next few years. The Top 50 or so HS players in each grade will be fine, these are the players that are usually offered spots at the Top 10 - 15 programs. I think college coaches will be looking to keep their "top players" for a 5th year, they will also look to bring in proven college players as graduate students and they will also be looking to the transfer portal for proven under graduate transfers. Look at Towson, They brought in two graduate transfers from Maryland and the players started from day 1, Towson also brought in a sophomore transfer from Boston college who has also started from day 1. Syracuse has a Grad Transfer from Georgetown who has played in every game starting 3 of 5. So it's not just the Big Name players that are coming in as graduate students or transfers. Programs that do not traditionally get top tier recruits may be able to pick up some as graduate students or transfers. Going to be a little crazy for the next few years.
