Women's Basketball Star Leaves School Early for Pro Career

It's official. Epiphanny Prince, one of the better Rutgers players, will leave school to take up pro ball in Europe during the 2009-10 college season, effectively skipping her senior year of school in hopes of making a bee line to the pros.

There's not so much as a beeline in the WNBA as a wandering of the ol' crow. The WNBA's rules for entry are considered to be more stringent than those of NBA draft prospects who are one-and-out. Essentially, you have to either:

a) Enter the WNBA Draft at the same time that your college class graduates. If you didn't go to college, you have to wait until four years after your senior year of high school and enter when you would have entered if you had attended four years of college, or

b) Play two years overseas. This is how Europeans make it into the W. I've never heard of a high school player skipping college to play two years in Europe, but it could theoretically happen.

Signs on jerseys. And now, female college basketball players skipping school for the European option. I'm telling you, it's a whole new ball game.