My two cents: this was a mistake by crawford but it has nothing to do with his academic credentials when he is 35- why bother thinking about that because the players sure as hell don't.
Everybody who has watched Crawford play knows he is not an NBA player- the only question about him was at what level does he play in Europe? Is he a top level guy who who can play a long time and make some decent cash or is he a mid level guy who bounces around all over Europe for multiple teams and less cash. I don't pretend to be a Euroleague expert, but I would tend to think that had Crawford stayed for his senior year and made an All ACC team (3rd team would be realistic), was the top player on a NCAA Tourney team (another big if but doable esp. if had Moore come back as well), scored over 2,000 total points in his career putting him as one of the top 5 scorers in Wake Forest history (definitely doable), as well the publicity that a really good ACC player can get from being on TV regularly, then he would have been in a much better position next year than to get 100K in Israel. He has essentially traded his senior year for 100k and had he bet on himself then he could be looking at substantially more than 100K over the course of his overseas career. People talk about this as a year of earning he can never get back, but it is also a senior year of accolades and bargaining power that he can never get back. Right now he is a just a guy who never won an NCAA tourney game, never made an ALL ACC team, and is not one of the all time leaders in a category at his school. He could have changed all that...or maybe he would have been the exact same player as a senior and made no improvements and had to go play overseas in a place like Israel for 100k.
