Community College Athletic Conference California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) Bay Valley Conference Big 8 Conference (California) Central Valley Conference Coast Conference Foothill Athletic Conference Golden Valley Conference Orange Empire Conference Pacific Coast Athletic Conference (CCCAA) South Coast Conference Western State Conference United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) Eastern Metro Athletic Conference Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Northeastern Intercollegiate Athletics Conference Penn State University Athletic Conference Yankee Small College Conference Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC) Northern Region Southern Region Eastern Region Western Region Association of Christian College Athletics (ACCA) Midwest Christian College Conference Independent conferences Liga Atlética Interuniversitaria de Puerto Rico Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference Northern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Pacific Christian Athletic Conference Wisconsin Collegiate Conference Relationship to professional basketball In past decades, the NBA held to tradition and drafted players who had graduated from college. This was a mutually beneficial relationship for the NBA and colleges—the colleges held onto players who would otherwise go professional, and the NBA did not have to fund a minor league. As the college game became commercialized, though, it became increasingly difficult for "student athletes" to be students. A growing number of poor and under-educated, but highly talented, teenage basketball players found the system exploitative—they brought in funds to schools where they learned little and played without income. The American Basketball Association began to employ players who had not yet graduated from college. After a season of junior college, a season at the University of Detroit, and an Olympic gold medal, Spencer Haywood played the 1969–70 season with the ABA's Denver Rockets. He signed with the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics in 1970, before his college class graduation, defying NBA rules. Haywood pleaded that, as his family's sole wage earner, he should be allowed to earn a living in the NBA or else his family would face destitution. The ensuing legal battle went to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled in 1971 that the NBA does not have the same antitrust exemption enjoyed by Major League Baseball. Thereafter, collegiate players demonstrating economic hardship were allowed early entry into the NBA draft. The hardship requirement was eliminated in 1976. In 1974, Moses Malone joined the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association (which became part of the NBA after the ABA–NBA merger in 1976) straight out of high school and went on to a Hall of Fame career. The past 30 years have seen a remarkable change in