# Which sport has the biggest/smallest difference between college and pro? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [January 11, 2017, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891 "2017-01-11T19:28:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891/41 "2017-01-19T15:33:26Z")
I would guess the narrowest gap between a pro league and college league would be between the CFL and the NCAA. I think the best CFL team may have a shot at beating the NCAA national champion! As long as the game is using CFL rules and the NCAA national champion doesn’t make special preparation for that 😉 Before one quibbles (quibbling on the SDMB? Never!) about this being leagues in two different countries, just over half the players in the CFL are drawn from the NCAA, so it is (by a hair) the source of the majority of CFL players. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891/42 "2017-01-19T23:24:04Z")
I’d say the biggest gaps are in baseball and hockey, based on the fact that those sports have the lowest percentage of players who attended college. Practically every pro football player has gone to college and rarely play less than 3 years. Most NBA players have played at least one year of college. Roughly a third of players drafted by MLB are from high school and another large percentage are international recruits. I don’t know the NHL percentages but I believe they are roughly the same. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891/43 "2017-01-20T18:33:32Z")
**Deeg** , yes, most NHL players come from the CHL, which comprises the three major-junior leagues (Quebec, Ontario, West), so you’re right that the majority of those players aren’t from college. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891/44 "2017-01-20T19:47:30Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > How about this…A team of hand-picked All-American basketball players would beat a team of hand-picked worst NBAers (presently playing). Yes? or at least have a good chance? I assume you can’t hand-pick a bunch of injured NBA players? 😉 But, thinking about it, there has to be at least six rookies somewhere on NBA rosters at just about any given time. Trivially, then, you should be able to find five college kids that have more talent than, and almost equal experience to, the worst five of those six. So, in reflection, I give the edge, marginally, to the college all-stars over the NBA anti-stars. But it depends a lot on the particular year, too. (Also, the size of the roster: the more players on it, the better the NBA team gets) What I was wondering was a time-machine matchup of the best-ever college hoops team vs. the worst-ever NBA league team. (ABA excluded to avoid any late-stage ‘imminent bankruptcy’ teams fielding the owner’s son and two janitors). Might need to put era limits on it, since I’m pretty sure modern fitness and tactics (especially if modern three-point rules and referees are used) will outweigh talent once the talent is from long enough ago. ---
**Author:** ![unwashed\_brain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a9adbd/32.png) [@unwashed\_brain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/unwashed_brain)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891/45 "2017-01-20T20:07:36Z")
Biggest is football - there are too many players on an NCAA roster that will never play a down in the NFL. Smallest is probably soccer, because the skillset is small, and peak physical strength isn’t as important as in the other sports where having 4 limbs matters. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891/46 "2017-01-21T00:59:31Z")
So I was actually wondering how much talent the top college baseball teams really have and found this web page, which seems like it has a credible list of the best teams of the 2000s: [http://www.collegebaseballtoday.com/2009/10/22/best-of-the-2000s-top-10-teams-of-the-decade/](http://www.collegebaseballtoday.com/2009/10/22/best-of-the-2000s-top-10-teams-of-the-decade/) Anyway, look up and down that list of players and it’s kind of shocking just how few familiar names there are. The #1 team, the 2003 Rice Owls, had David Aardsma, who had a couple good seasons as a relief pitcher mixed in with a bunch of not-so-good ones; Jeff Niemann, who at least held down a major league starting pitching job for a while; Paul Janish, a defensive replacement/utility man who has managed to play 8 seasons in the majors; Philip Humber, who had one sorta successful season as a starting pitcher; Craig Stansberry, who has a total of 29 major league plate appearances to his name; and Lance Pendleton, the owner of 18.2 major league innings and a 6.75 ERA. The other teams aren’t any better; the only two guys out of all ten teams listed on that page with real major league success (to my knowledge) are Huston Street and Andrew Miller, two relief pitchers. ---
**Author:** ![TheBoltEater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheBoltEater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBoltEater)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891/47 "2017-01-21T06:59:46Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > What I was wondering was a time-machine matchup of the best-ever college hoops team vs. the worst-ever NBA league team. You reminded me of this thread from back in 2011. I haven’t changed my mind any since then. The links are broken now, but you can still easily look them up. > **[Best college team vs. worst NBA team - who wins?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=601834)** > > I think the NBA team is supposed to win easily. Anybody disagree? Let’s say Ohio State or Duke vs. Cavaliers? Post #35 > [@](#): > > As most people here have already written, the NBA team is gonna win hands down pretty much every time. I think you also have to believe that the best teams in college basketball right now are nowhere near as good as the best teams from the 80s or early 90s. There is no team out there today anywhere near the quality of the Fab 5 at Michigan or the Laettner/Hurley/Hill Duke teams or the UNC team mentioned above. > > But if I had to bet my house on any college team beating any NBA team in a 7 game series, I would head back to the spring of 1990 and take the Jerry Tarkanian led UNLV Runnin’ Rebels versus the expansion Orlando Magic (who, by a single win, were technically not the worst team in the NBA that year). > > The Rebels > The Magic > > I firmly believe that that UNLV team was the greatest college basketball team of all time (as does that link, btw). Larry Johnson was the #1 overall pick and an instant NBA star (Rookie of the Year and an All-Star in year 2), and Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony were both lottery picks. The Magic, by contrast, were an expansion team who featured one of the worst defenses in NBA history, giving up nearly 120 points per game! > > I can’t say for sure that Vegas would win that series. Bad as they were, the Magic still had a roster of older, entirely professional basketball players with a couple real talents in a young Nick Anderson and an aging Reggie Theus (from UNLV!) But in the end, I certainly believe that they’d win at least once. “Grandmama” and the Rebels beat down Duke in the Finals that year by _thirty_. Then they went undefeated the next season until a shock loss to that same Blue Devils team in a rematch in the Final Four. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891/48 "2017-01-21T08:37:20Z")
> [@unwashed\_brain](#): > > Smallest is probably soccer, because the skillset is small, and peak physical strength isn’t as important as in the other sports where having 4 limbs matters. Peak strength isn’t as important but physical conditioning certainly is, the top players are insanely fit. What do you mean “the skillset is small”? That seems like a bizarre comment. What skills do you imagine are required by a top level player? Having played at a decent amateur standard and then played up against semi-pros (so 5 or 6 tiers down from the top lads) the skill level differences in soccer are incredibly large. Insurmountably so to my mind. The amateur level I played at was the equivalent of a university team. (I know this having played against university teams) At our peak we could have possibly kept a lower league team to less than 5 goals on a good day. A top tier team would be in double figures 9 times out of 10. The biggest factor in all of this is that, if you a very good soccer player at age 18-21 you are highly unlikely to be playing in a university team [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-sport-has-the-biggest-smallest-difference-between-college-and-pro/776891.md?page=2)