SAN ANTONIO - Memphis Coach John Calipari may lose freshman guard Derrick Rose after just one season if, as many suspect, Rose jumps to the NBA. It’s a common problem for elite programs, but Calipari’s outlook on that is interesting.

“I’m not sure if a kid is really talented and he’s a junior, even sometimes a sophomore, to stay another two years - if you’re a first-round pick - I’m not sure it’s very intelligent,” Calipari said. “Seems to me that history says the longer you stay [in college], they’re finding more kinks in your armor.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want kids to graduate; I do. But if a kid is a first-round draft pick, my recommendation will be that you need to go for it. I ask you to come back and finish up. We’ll help you with courses in the summer. We’ll do our thing. But you should probably do this.”

This became a bigger issue in college a couple of years ago when the NBA regulated against taking a player straight out of high school, a la LeBron James - mandating that they have to stay at least a year in college. Last year, the top two picks in the NBA draft - Kevin Durant and Greg Oden - spent just that one year. That could make it tough on a coach trying to stay on top when he has a player for just one season, but Calipari said you have to look at the big picture.

“When the NBA started drafting players directly out of high school, you had 10th graders whose whole mindset was, ‘I’m going straight to the NBA.’ Then the NBA came back and knew they had made a lot of mistakes on kids and paid a lot of money to kids that had not been tested, except in a McDonald’s All-American game in a pickup game. They said, ‘You’re going to have to go to college for one year,’ knowing the kids would go to the biggest leagues, biggest schools, and be challenged by juniors and seniors. You could see what they were. That now keeps some of these kids in [school].”