The University of Maryland basketball program is off to an impressive 19-3 record and is currently ranked fourth in the country, according to the AP Poll.

This year’s team is led by sophomore Melo Trimble; senior Rasheed Sulaimon; a transfer from Duke; and freshman Diamond Stone. This year’s team has definitely met expectations as the team was predicted to be the front-runner in the Big Ten Conference.

However, this year’s talented players may leave next year’s team with some struggles. Trimble is expected to declare for the NBA draft after this season following two stellar years for the Terps.

Another underclassmen who is expected to declare for the NBA draft following this season is Stone. Stone, who was a McDonald’s All-American coming out of high school, has impressed at the college level and has serious professional potential. Both Trimble and Stone are expected to be lottery picks in the 2016 NBA Draft.

Junior transfer from Georgia State Robert Carter is also possibly declaring for the NBA Draft. Carter spent last year’s season on the practice squad due to NCAA transfer policies, but has worked his way into the starting rotation.

Senior Jake Layman will be another player who will be leaving the team following this season. Layman, who committed in 2011, has provided to the team immensely since. He is a player that didn’t necessarily excel at the college level, but his style of play is much more similar to that of the NBA.

All five of these players have spent a majority of the time in this year’s starting lineup and all are possibly leaving next year. So what does that mean for the Terps in the years to come?

Not much. The team is going to need a strong recruiting class in order to even be somewhat close to the talent of this year’s team. For the next couple of years, it doesn’t look too promising.

College basketball is the only sport that is notorious for having its athletes declare for the draft before their junior year of school. The only other sport that has athletes declare early is football, and it’s never before junior year because football has a rule implemented requiring athletes to stay in college until they are three years out of high school.

NBA players like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James set the precedent for this ridiculous trend, but to an extreme. Now granted, both of these players will be future hall of famers, they still never stepped foot on a college campus. They went straight from high school to the NBA and started a trend for athletes to come.

In my opinion the NCAA should have some type of regulation for declaring as a professional for basketball. In some cases it does make sense for players to declare early so their stock doesn’t drop. I get that. But for some players who have only played one year of collegiate athletics, moving straight to the pros is somewhat ridiculous.

This year’s Terps team has been exciting to watch and will hopefully make it all the way this March, but they’re almost too good. They’re going to have a majority of their core players leaving them next year which will make the winning tradition hard to uphold.

Alex Rasmussen is the Social Media Manager for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.