Love can’t have a legacy without joining fraternity

I was listening to UCLA freshman Kevin Love give his commencement address the other day and, with apologies to Rick Neuheisel, I wanted to go over the wall.

After spending eight months here, he was mentioning his name in the same sentence as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton.

“They left their legacy on the court and off the court as well,” he said. “I want to continue to do so.”

Don’t get me wrong, Kevin Love is a great kid, and during his brief time here he has been a model of class and grace.

By leaving for the NBA, he’s doing the right thing. Any of us would do the same thing.

Deservedly, Kevin Love will soon have lots of money.

But he’ll never have a UCLA legacy.

He’ll have a UCLA hiccup. He has had a UCLA guest spot. He has been a UCLA temp.

Like other high-profile freshmen leaving college this spring, two years after the enactment of the NBA rule that prohibits drafting them directly out of high school, Love can’t have it both ways.

He can’t use UCLA as a brief triple-A stop before heading to the major leagues, yet still have a center-field monument.

Ed O’Bannon, George Zidek and Tyus Edney, now that’s a legacy.

All three players were seniors when they led UCLA to its last national championship in 1995.

That sort of championship cornerstone -- once college basketball’s best selling point -- is all but crumbling under the force of the two-year-old rule.

From Kansas State to Memphis to Arizona to USC to UCLA, the story has been the same.

A great high school player bangs on the door of a great college program (Or in O.J. Mayo’s case, he simply phones and refuses to leave a return number).

A great coach has no choice but to take him.

A year later, that player leaves, another great player takes his place, and by the time everyone learns the defense, that player is gone.

So, too, is a bit of the fabric that binds college hoops fans to their sport, the glue that ties March to the madness.

A Harris Poll conducted earlier this year showed that college football is three times as popular as college basketball.

One reason? College football players have to stick around three years.

Fans get to know them. Fans feel like they are watching not only kids play football, but kids grow up.

The one thing that always separated college sports from the pros is the lack of free agency.

This new NBA rule has caused the most chaotic kind of free agency.

In no sport other than minor league baseball can a great player show up for one year, then just disappear to a better job in the same sport.

The senior leaders are now one-and-done freshmen. Star today, gone tomorrow.

Next season the UCLA Bruins may feel a little like the Lancaster JetHawks.

“The pros have ruined college basketball,” former Bruins great Mike Warren said. “They’ve turned it upside down, turned it into an NBA minor league.”

Warren does not agree that a player like Love will leave with no legacy. “He did more for UCLA in one year than some people do in four years,” Warren said. “His legacy will last.”

The same could certainly be debated about Mayo, whose initial bang ended with more of a whimper.

Said Mayo said of his brief time at USC: “I definitely got the most out of it.”

Fine, but did USC get the most out of it?

It’s a hard question, but one that needs to be asked.

Would the programs at UCLA and USC been better if Love and Mayo had never attended?

Would college basketball be better if all those one-and-done freshmen were once again allowed to go from high school to the pros? Thus leaving the college game for the kids who will at least spend a couple of years in college and allow for the building of a system and the continuation of a tradition?

I vote yes and yes.

Without Love and Mayo, lots of fans wouldn’t have a chance to see and mingle with two potential NBA stars.

But those same fans would have a chance to watch slightly lesser talents grow together and perhaps eventually lead their teams to greater heights.

The fact is, Love and Mayo didn’t take their teams any further than they had gone the previous season.

And the fact is, both programs will be a lot harder to watch in the immediate future as their coaches pick up the pieces.

In that same Harris poll, college basketball was tied for sixth overall among America’s most popular sport, trailing even hockey.

Nineteen years ago, college basketball ranked third.

With the players constantly changing -- and now the best players constantly leaving -- the average fan doesn’t really pay attention until March.

College basketball has become basically a four-week sport, lasting only as long as your office pool.

“What is happening today just think it makes everything harder,” said John Vallely, former UCLA national-champion guard. “There isn’t the tradition we had in the past. The players today, they’re like a short chapter in a much longer book.”

I remember talking to Trojans Coach Tim Floyd earlier this year and being stunned at his lament. “We have such great young players here, I just wish I could keep this team together for another year or two. . . . “ he said.

Isn’t this something usually said by the manager of the Minnesota Twins? Or the coach of the Clippers?

Is this something that should be said by a college coach whose team does not contain a senior?

The new NBA rule is great for the league. It gives their incoming rookies both maturity and marketing exposure.

But it’s lousy for the college fans, including those from UCLA, who this week mourn the end of the, um, Kevin Love Era and the beginning of the, er, Jrue Holiday Era.

Jrue who? Oh, never mind, he’ll be gone before you know it.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.