The Wildcats pose on Thursday at the Final Four in Indianapolis. (Elliott Hess, UK Athletics)

INDIANAPOLIS – Rock and roll hall of famer Bob Dylan famously wrote “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” College basketball can relate.On Thursday, four current or future college basketball hall of fame coaches talked about the changing times of their sport, specifically the one and done – succeed and proceed, if you prefer – era that has overcome it.”It’s changed,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari said. “It’s changed for all of us. It’s changed from Internet to draft lists to the gazillions in the NBA. It’s all that stuff that’s made this different, our jobs different.”Since Calipari was hired six years ago Wednesday, Kentucky has churned out 19 NBA Draft picks, including 15 first-rounders, and 13 freshmen. Those numbers dwarf every other school in America, but don’t signify that UK is the lone team that recruits those players, nor encourages them to leave for the NBA if they have that opportunity.While Wisconsin, which sports a starting lineup of two sophomores, a junior and two seniors, is not known for sending players to the NBA after only one year in college, head coach Bo Ryan said he would not hold a player back from that decision if that’s what they wanted to do.”Nigel Hayes, after he said he was coming to Wisconsin, you can ask him this, said, ‘Coach, now if I’m the Player of the Year my freshman year and I decide to go pro, is that OK with you?’ ” Ryan said. “… Are you serious, Nigel? I just said, ‘Hey, sure, I have no problem with that.’ “”It’s just a different era,” Coach Cal said. “We’re dealing with things in a different way. You just have to, we all are. Whether me or Bo, if Bo has a guy after a year, Bo is going to tell him to go for it if he’s a lottery pick. We’re all in the same thing. You don’t know when you recruit a kid if he’s going to leave after a year. You don’t know. You just coach them, then they make a decision what they want to do. We just try to make sure we make this about the kids.”One of the numerous gripes that is often thrown out in the criticism of the one and done era is that because the student-athletes are only at the university for one year they do not have enough time to build a legacy or make an impact in the community.Those following this year’s group of Wildcats knows, however, that this idea appears to be a farce.There’s Marcus Lee, who performed as a behind-the-scenes community superhero of sorts, not telling his coach of his community related good deeds until a letter was sent to Calipari describing the impact Lee was making in local hospitals.There’s Willie Cauley-Stein, who recently befriended Olivia Towles, a 4-year-old with cerebral palsy and had lunch with her Tuesday at the Wildcat Coal Lodge.There’s Karl-Anthony Towns, who became friends with Matt Bunk, a 19-year-old who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a child and is now restricted to a wheelchair. Towns signed and gave Bunk his shoes after the Wildcats’ regular-season finale versus Florida and told Bunk to let him know the next time he was around.The 2010 Kentucky Wildcats took time out of their regular-season schedule to help raise more than $1 million for Haiti earthquake relief efforts through a telethon. Two members from that team, John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, later donated $1 million each to charity after receiving max NBA contracts.”Whether they chase their dream or not doesn’t make them good or bad, we have great kids,” Coach Cal said. “The second thing is our kids are connected. Anyone that knows any of our players that are in the NBA, not in the NBA, they are connected whether they stayed one year, two years, three. We are family, and they know that. They stay in touch. They text. We talk to them. I’ll go to games. They’ll come in for watching games. It’s just different. I think everybody’s now looking at this saying, ‘It’s not my rule.’ As a matter of fact, it’s not the NCAA’s rule. This is a rule between the NBA and the Players’ Association.”The reason so many players have decided to leave college early for the NBA, in Calipari’s eyes, is the growing value of contracts. What was once a $125,000 contract, has now become a $25 million contract if you’re a top-10 pick, he says.What was lost on both Calipari and Ryan, is the double standard associated with young people leaving school early to pursue an NBA career, but not when another student, athlete or not, leaves school early to further pursue their sport or a different profession.”I will tell you, we have universities here around this country, some of the top, that encourage genius, kids to move on and do their things if they stayed one or two years,” Coach Cal said. “As a matter of fact, they’ll invest in them financially and tell them, ‘If it doesn’t go, you can come back and your position will always be there.’ I don’t understand why it’s a problem if it’s the same with basketball players. These kids have a genius. Our jobs are to help them grow on and off the court, to help them become better men, to be prepared for society, yet they’re chasing a dream and they have a genius.””What I agree totally with is the entertainers, the people who are talented in other areas that end up going and doing something, going out of school thinking later to come back, that maybe they’ll get their degree, maybe they won’t,” Ryan said. “You never hear about those people. It only comes up, and John has to face those type of questions a heck of a lot more than I do. In college, if people are stepping away, I don’t call it dropping out, they’re stepping away to pursue their passion.”DraftExpress.com has five players currently listed in the top 10 of its latest 2015 NBA Draft projection who will be playing in Saturday’s Final Four games, three of whom are freshmen. Of DraftExpress’ top 20, eight will be playing in the Final Four, five are freshmen, and just one is a senior. It’s quite possible all will enter the NBA Draft to begin their professional lives by season’s end.In last year’s Final Four and national championship, Kentucky started five freshmen. In 2014-15 the Wildcats have often started two freshmen, two sophomores and one junior. The Cats have thrived off the play of their four rookies, three of whom are listed in DraftExpress.com’s top 20, as well as their returners, a mix Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is starting three freshmen this season who are all projected to be first-round picks, said helps “tremendously.”Despite being the fifth-youngest team in all of college basketball, each of the Wildcats’ student-athletes has shown a great sense of maturity both in their selfless attitudes, team-first approach and ability to block out distractions and pressure and focus on the task at hand. The end result has impressed coaches from afar and near, while also ushering in a changing of times in this new era.”Times have changed a little bit,” Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo said. “I still think they can make an impact. I don’t think we always appreciate it as much because we want them there longer, means fans, media, everybody else.””John has done an amazing job with his group, and it’s been good for college basketball in that you’ve been talking about a team instead of talking about freshmen or individuals,” Krzyzewski said. “For a few years we’ve gotten to be like the pros where it’s a matchup of individuals. This year it’s a renewal of what college basketball should be: it’s about teams. Kentucky’s been a great team.”

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