re: 26 year old playing in March Madness - this is the future of the sport (link)

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Imagine the sob stories some guy from the projects of Serbia or the Ukrane would have? If they are 6 10 and 289 and can consistently score and are 27… lets take a ton of them

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What the hell are you even talking about? There's never been an age limit for college eligibility. It's been 5 to play 4, with the clock starting once you've enrolled in school, for forever.

A number of football players had pro baseball careers prior to enrolling in college. Chris Weinke started playing college football at 25 after spending 6 years in minor league baseball. Josh Booty was about 24 when he began at LSU. Matt Mauck didn't enroll until he was 21. Brandon Weeden was 24.

Chad Lavalais spent 2 years working as a prison guard before enrolling at LSU.

Countless LDS players have served their mission for 2 years before beginning college athletics.

This stuff has been going on for decades. Even the example of Trinidad Chambliss is an extreme one that is within the existing eligibility rules. The only real substantive change that's occurred recently was the decision that JUCO time no longer counts towards NCAA eligibility limits.

When it becomes a regular occurrence that G-Leaguers are returning to play college basketball. They're trying, but so far it hasn't happened.

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now it's a major issue

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You have one example of a 26 year old playing in the NCAA tournament, out of 700 odd players. There's a couple of examples of players in football being granted 8th seasons due to medical redshirts, which is pretty ridiculous, but out of thousands, still not a big deal.

The largest substantive change in rules is the removal of JUCO years counting towards the 5 years of NCAA eligibility. Which will generally result in a few 24-25 year-olds playing college sports.

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Ohio State dumped a good portion of their freshman class last year

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Their official roster shows 50 or so Freshman and Sophomores. 55 or so Juniors, Seniors, and Graduate students.

Seems like a pretty standard distribution.