They are inherently afraid of being forgotten, of becoming the players they wonder about today.
The names fade from memory. Players like Ed O'Bannon, Miles Simon, Scotty Thurman, Harold Miner, Dontae Jones and even Harold Arceneaux, who ended his career last March, but to some it stopped two years ago after he lit up North Carolina in a stunning NCAA Tournament first-round exit.
Arceneaux considered leaving for the NBA but returned for an anonymous senior season. He wasn't drafted this past June -- 15 months after being hailed as a giant slayer against the Tar Heels.
|  | | Charlie Bell, center, can only hope Michigan State fans will find his name on an NBA roster next season. |
It doesn't matter if today's players are locks for the first round, second round or are on the bubble to make the NBA. They all fear the same thing: not making it and having someone write a column about where they are now.
"I hope it doesn't happen to me," Michigan State senior guard Charlie Bell said. "It's got to be really hard for those guys. You go to a big-time program, win a lot of games, go to the Final Four and then you're nowhere. No one knows what you're doing and no one cares."
Final Four heroes Thurman (Arkansas in '94), O'Bannon (with UCLA in '95) and Simon (on Arizona in '97) never made a professional splash. And, to some extent, there's nothing wrong with simply having a remarkable college career. The pool of NBA players is limited, with only two rounds. Most of the second-round picks don't receive guaranteed contracts, let alone make the team.
"I've thought about what it will be like next year and you just never know," Duke senior Nate James said. "If I'm lucky enough to make it to the NBA I know it won't be like Duke, with all the friends and people that you've gotten to know over the years. Here (at Duke) you are truly a part of something with the students, players and coaches. Even some superstar college players who are drafted into the NBA still aren't a big factor on their NBA teams so I think you just never know.
"I look at next year as a new beginning and a new challenge and the new atmosphere is just something I'll have to go through if I want to get to the
next level."
Some of the players today are starting to understand the work ethic it takes to get to the NBA. They still might not believe they won't get picked until it actually happens. There's no way North Carolina's Ed Cota could have imagined that he would go undrafted last June. Connecticut's Khalid El-Amin seemed stunned that he would actually fall to the second round.
Cota still hasn't made a roster, while El-Amin turned a potential humbling experience into a chance to work harder. He ended up being the best of the three point guards taken by Chicago last June, outshining Indiana's A.J. Guyton and Michigan's Jamal Crawford.
"It's very scary, but when you get the opportunity to play in paradise then you've got to keep working," said Connecticut freshman forward Caron Butler, who was considered to be a potential early-entry candidate out of Maine Central Institute last year if he didn't get academically eligible.
Butler still might not be a four-year college player, but he understands he's not a sure thing even if he leaves.
"A lot of people stop working when they get to that level," Butler said. "You've got to keep pushing yourself. I always wonder what happened to the great college players like Harold Miner and people like that. But I just can't let it be me."
One of the best ways to avoid the black hole of former great college players, or at the very least significant names in the game, is to seek counsel. Tennessee's Tony Harris and Ron Slay regularly talk to former Mississippi State star Dontae Jones.
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“ |
I do
wonder what happened to a lot of guys, whether
they went overseas or something. But, as long as you're getting paid, it doesn't hurt that
much. ” |
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— Albert Mouring,
Connecticut senior guard |
Jones, who was known as much for somehow getting 36 hours of summer courses to get eligible as he was for leading the Bulldogs to the 1996 Final Four, has been an enigma in the NBA. He was drafted by the New York Knicks and bounced around the league, also pulling a stint with the Celtics.
"Dontae told me and Ron how hard it was to stay in the league and what he went through," Harris said. "What you learn is how you're on your own. The school can't do this or that for you anymore. If you hurt yourself, you've got to pay the bills. He kept telling us that we've got so much to shoot for and look forward to that we can't let up one hour or one minute of every day."
Harris said most players never think about having to go overseas, through the CBA, the ABA2000, the IBA or any other fledgling minor league. The talk is always of the big payday. The players who left school early, like Jones, are even more prone to failure if they're not a lock for the lottery. Thurman was a no-show in the draft after he left following his junior season.
"Guys shouldn't leave early unless they know they're going to be in the lottery," Connecticut senior guard Albert Mouring said. "It's real scary. I just hope I get drafted and then work as hard as possible to get there.
"I do wonder what happened to a lot of guys, whether they went overseas or something. But, as long as you're getting paid, it doesn't hurt that much."
The hardest adjustment facing these pros-to-be is going from being the big man on campus at a big-time program to relative obscurity, which can mean busing in the CBA or simply going to tryouts once again to see if you're worthy for a professional contract. No more is that apparent than at Duke, where the basketball players might as well be on Mount Olympus during their careers.
James has seen the high-profile underclassmen leave early and stick in the league like Elton Brand. He's also seen the four-year guy like Chris Carrawell fall to the second round and have a hard time trying to get a roster spot. When Carrawell went lower than he thought last June, the talk on the team was that he would simply have to work harder to get into the league.
"When you really break it down, how many people can say that they are fresh out of college making that kind of money doing something they love," James said. "It's something that I've thought about but I'm not really worried about it.
Not while he's part of a highly-ranked Duke squad in quest of a national championship.
But when the season ends in April, and James is just another name trying to get into the Portsmouth Invitational for a look, he'll be reminded quickly that his basketball career might never be as good as it was when he was in college.
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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