ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — It’s an inherently challenging practice as it stands.

The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team, in today’s collegiate climate, has had a tough enough time keeping its rosters intact, protecting players from the prying hands of the Power 5 conferences and managing the ever-expanding transfer portal.

The ability to do those things could soon become even more difficult.

In a proposed rule change currently being reviewed by the NCAA Division I Council, all D-I athletes would be allowed a one-time transfer option without having to sit out a year of competition.

If adopted by the D-I Council, which is expected to vote on the issue in June, the new transfer criteria would allow athletes in all sports to compete immediately if they are in good academic standing, maintain their academic progress at their new school and leave under no disciplinary suspension.

The new rule would undoubtedly have a profound impact on the collegiate athletics landscape. And given the current nature of the top sports — the already widening gap between the “Power 5s” and everyone else — it could have a potentially damaging effect on programs such as Bona.

Count Bona boss Mark Schmidt among the long list of coaches vehemently against the impending change.

“IT’S TERRIBLE,” he said flatly during a conference call with season ticket holders last week. “It’s the end of what we know college basketball to be.

“When kids aren’t happy, they’re just going to jump, and you see right now, there are 750 kids or so in the portal, so the NCAA … they don’t want to deal with all the (waiver requests); they’re inundated with them. So it’s almost like they’re throwing their hands up and saying, ‘let’s just give them a one-time transfer.’”

He added: “They’re voting on it in (June), and everything that I’ve heard is that it’s going to go through, and it (could) go through this year.”

The 14th-year Bona coach is right.

It’s not that Division I athletes, already subjected to any number of unfair NCAA restrictions, shouldn’t be granted more freedom — they certainly should, in so many ways — or be denied an opportunity to do what’s best for them.

This rule change is, ostensibly, being made with the players in mind.

But this policy seemingly has the potential to do more harm than good … at least as it relates to Bona, its players and just about every other non-Power 5 program.

WHETHER AN intended consequence or not, mid-majors and below could essentially become a farm system for the P-5s, with those players able to bolt, with impunity, for the first passing glance from a high-major.

A greater number of players would presumably be led astray by P-5 coaches who are out, first and foremost, to poach for their immediate benefit. Schools such as Bona would live in constant paranoia that its best guys will be lured away under the guise of glitz and glamour, with no real regard for what’s best for that kid.

And that’s to say nothing of the academic side, where history has shown that an increased number of transfers means lower graduation rates. In fact, that’s the reason the year-in-residence rule was instituted in the first place.

“(Middling conferences): It’s going to kill them,” an anonymous Power 5 head coach said to ESPN.com in February. “They’re going to be our G League. They’ll be our little amateur league where we’ll draw good players from. Every kid wants to play in the Power 5. I don’t care what you say, that’s what (they) want.”

And that’s just it.

Aside from reeling in the top 100-or-so prospects, what’s to stop a Power 5 coach from recruiting strictly off other campuses rather than at the prep or high school level? What would stop the spring and summer from becoming absolute chaos, when half of every mid-major roster in the country decides they’re out?

IT’S A potential reality that isn’t lost on coaches such as Schmidt.

“What’s going to happen is, one of our players is going to have a good game against a team that’s a little bit higher than us — for instance, Rutgers (from this season),” he said. “One of our young guys has a good game, and in the handshake line, they’ll be talking about, ‘Hey, I’ll give you a call tonight.

“It’s going to be free agency. You’re not going to be building programs now, you build a team for one year. Because next year, you never know who’s going to be on your team … which is a shame, but that’s how it is.”

Players, of course, should have every opportunity to play at a higher level if they’re good enough and so inclined.

But this rule, as presented, doesn’t seem to have the best interests for the sport as a whole in mind. Rather, it strikes as another way for the money-making ‘haves’ to further distance itself from the ‘have nots,’ to find yet another avenue to strangle every last dollar it can from TV deals and NCAA Tournament units.

“I remember (former Saint Joe’s coach) Phil Martelli saying three or four years ago at our meetings down in Florida,” Schmidt said, “the (power conferences) want to form their own organization, and I think that’s what’s going on.

“I think they’re trying to break away and have their own seven-conference (operation). “I think it’s not good, but it’s something that’s going to pass, and we have to adjust to it.”