While some Kansas fans may look at Julian Wright’s early entry to the NBA draft as disappointing, they need to realize that early departures are a sign of a successful program.

In college basketball, players like Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison do not exist anymore. Rarely will we see a player stay four years, earn his degree and leave a lottery pick in the draft.

Nobody understands this better than Bill Self.

“This is a moment that I knew would come,” Self said. “With this team, I knew it would come. It’s not a happy day or a sad day, just a day that if you coach at a place like Kansas, you’re going to have to deal with from time to time.”

With the NBA’s new age limit of 19, freshmen are going to impact teams like never before, as we saw this season with Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. As a result, if a team does not have elite young NBA talent, it is unlikely that it is going to contend for a national championship. Florida was fortunate to get a third year out of its talented group of juniors. Georgetown is likely to lose Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert to the draft, as is UCLA with Arron Afflalo, Darren Collison and possibly Josh Shipp.

Here is the cycle we will begin to see with talented players: they come in as freshmen and, barring an Oden- or Durant-like performance, show flashes of brilliance and yet struggle at times. Then, as sophomores, they take their game to the next level and show that they can be all-conference performers and lead a team to the Final Four. After sophomore year, they leave for the draft and the next batch of players arrive.

Fortunately for Kansas, more of these types of players are going to come. Players want to go to schools that place players in the NBA. Players like Wright are only going to help Kansas bring in similar talent in the future.

“It’s not a totally bad thing because it’s been my experience that when you have guys experience success and move on, that’s also very attractive to some other guys out there that want to experience the same kind of success and do some things similar to what Julian did,” Self said.

In other words, expect Self to sign a few lottery picks in the class of 2008.

The last team to win a national championship without an early entry lottery pick was Michigan State in 2000, led by seniors Mateen Cleaves and Morris Peterson. Kansas nearly pulled off the feat in 2003 with Hinrich and Collison. If a player stays in college for four years, he likely is not good enough to lead a team to a national championship.

For example, take a look at the outstanding senior class for Kansas in 2005. Wayne Simien, Aaron Miles, Keith Langford and Michael Lee were all great representatives for the University but they were not good enough to bring in a title.

As Self said, Monday was not a sad day for Kansas basketball fans. It was a day that signaled the strength of the program. If the program hopes to maintain this strength, expect several similar news conferences in the next few years.

Sarraf is a Lawrence senior in journalism.

— Edited by Katie Sullivan