Make College Basketball Great Again

I love college basketball, but it has some serious problems.  There’s a reason that it’s being investigated by the FBI.  Before I try to fix college basketball, let’s talk about the problems.  So many people seem to want to fix college basketball without identifying the problems first.

The biggest problem with college basketball is that the college part of college basketball has been taken out for so many of the players.  People want to blame the NBA for that with the one and done rule.  The NBA rule has certainly contributed, but certain colleges bear much greater responsibility for problems than the NBA.  You hear people wanting to pay college basketball players.  I do not think that will fix anything and will just create other problems.  I’m no expert, but I’d imagine you’d have Title IX issues with that.  What do you do about women’s basketball?  And then what do you do about other sports?  And you know that NCAA Basketball Tournament that you love?  It’s over if you start paying players.  There are 351 Division I basketball schools.  How many schools could actually pay their players?  Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, and maybe 30-50 others.  I’m pretty sure St. Bonaventure or South Dakota State or the College of Charleston has any desire or ability to pay basketball players.  Part of the beauty of the NCAA Tournament is that all of these schools get a chance to compete with Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina.  If you start paying players, that’s over.  I’m not saying that they couldn’t compete with schools paying players; I’m saying that they wouldn’t compete.  They wouldn’t be playing the same level of basketball anymore.  You’d have to split Division I into two separate divisions (one where they pay the players and one where they don’t).  I’m not getting excited about watching a 16 team tournament or whatever of semi-pro basketball teams.

All of that brings me back to the problem of college not being a part of college basketball anymore.  College basketball players receive a scholarship for a free education to play basketball.  The university is providing something in exchange for something else.  For the vast majority of these players, that is an extremely good deal for them.  For the ones that it is not an extremely good deal, it’s because those players have no intention of getting a college education and the universities know that.  So all they’re doing is providing a place for them to live and play basketball in exchange for the players playing basketball.  That’s not as good of a deal anymore.

One other thought about money in college basketball.  You hear about how these players generating all this money.  That is really overstated.  Let me use Bonzie Colson as an example.  I love Bonzie Colson.  I don’t know what’s going to happen to him next year, but let’s just say he ends up playing in the NBA G-League.  Are you going to have the crowds for G-League games to see Bonzie Colson play that you have to see him play at Notre Dame?  No.  Are you going to have people buying his Maine Red Claws (or whatever team) jersey the way you have people buying number 35 Notre Dame jerseys?  No.  People are going to care about Notre Dame, Duke, Kansas, Gonzaga, or whatever school’s basketball team regardless of what players are on the team.  And they’re not going to care about the NBA G-League teams in all likelihood regardless of what players are on the team (unless maybe there’s a change that I’ll get to later).

Another problem is all the stupid NCAA rules.  While I’m totally against the colleges paying players, I am not totally against the players having an opportunity to make money in other ways.  Remember those NCAA football/basketball video games?  They don’t make them anymore because of all the lawsuits.  When they did make them, they didn’t use the players’ names.  Why not just put the players’ names in the game and have EA Sports give them $100 or something and a free copy of the game?  Who would that hurt?  I’m sure the players would be pretty excited about it.  I would be in favor of letting players do endorsements up to a certain amount of money.  I don’t know what the amount would be, but I wouldn’t want a situation where it would be like, “Come to UCLA because you can get a million dollars in endorsements in Los Angeles and there’s no way you’re going to get that much if you go to Washington State or wherever.”

So what could change to fix the situation college basketball finds itself in?  Let’s start with what the NBA could do?  They could make it two years out of high school before you could play in the NBA.  That would definitely be better than what we have now, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.  They could go to the baseball rule or something similar.  In baseball, you can be drafted right out of high school, but if you decide to go to college you’re not eligible for the draft again until three years later.  That would be great for college basketball.  I’d be very worried about what it would mean for the NBA.  Get paid now or wait three years to get paid?  If 18 year olds were making that decision, I’d be very worried about what they would do.  It would be good for college basketball, but it could be pretty bad for the NBA.

Here’s what I’d like to see.  Give players more options.  Make it a combination of the baseball rule and the current rule.  What do I mean?  You have the rule about not being eligible for the draft for three years if you decide to go to college.  If you don’t decide to go to college, you still have to wait a year to play in the NBA.  The difference would be that you could be drafted right out of high school.  You’d just have to play a year in the G-League first.  And you would get paid a real salary.  Right now, players could play in the G-League right out of high school or they could get paid to play overseas right out of high school.  But those choices are not very appealing.  You either have to move to a foreign country very far away from home (where you have no intention of staying) or get paid a very small amount.  I’m pretty sure DeAndre Ayton is getting paid more to play at Arizona this year (which is against the rules, of course) than he would be if he was playing in the G-League this year.  So with my rule change, you’d keep players from going to the NBA too soon, but you’d also get some more talent into the G-League.  If NBA teams drafted some players that they’d have to stash in the G-League for a year, suddenly there would be a lot more excitement about the G-League.  Right now, you don’t have future stars in the G-League.  You would under my plan.  If the Nets drafted a superstar high school player (whenever they have a draft pick again), people might be a little more interested in seeing the Long Island Nets play in the G-League.  My plan would also reduce the talent level in college basketball.  I’m fine with that.  If they have no interest in being college students, they shouldn’t be playing college basketball.

The other thing the NBA could do would be to incentivize players to stay in college.  You could set up some type of system that rewards players based on how long they stay in college.  The rookie salary scale could be based on how many years a player was in college.  I would have a base salary scale for rookies and add certain percentages for each year a player was in college.  Any percentage added on top would not count for salary cap/luxury tax purposes.  Another incentive could be that if you stay three or four years, you have one less year on your contract before reaching free agency.

What could the NCAA do besides fixing silly rules?  Let’s assume the NBA doesn’t make any of these changes.  How about a rule that when a university offers a scholarship, they’re making a four-year commitment to that player.  So if you have a player that leaves after a year to go to the NBA, that scholarship is burned for the next three years.  You have teams like Kentucky and Duke that are pretty much teams of hired mercenaries (or in Duke’s case, hired mercenaries plus Grayson Allen, not really any better than Kentucky).  Are they going to bring in a freshmen class of five guys that have every intention of going to the NBA after a year if they know that recruiting a player that has no intention of being a real college student is going to leave them with a dead scholarship for three years?  They might take one or two here or there, but they’re not going to build an entire team like that.  The burned scholarships would have to be for players that declare for the NBA Draft, not for players that transfer.  If a player is in good academic standing and transfers for more playing time or to be closer to home or whatever, the university shouldn’t be punished for that.

And what about the universities?  Again, assume no NBA changes or NCAA changes.  How about this:  only recruit athletes that are going to be real students.  If a kid has no intention of being a real student, he shouldn’t be getting a scholarship to play basketball.  Before you tell me that you have to recruit the one and done players to win, you don’t.  Villanova won a National Championship with a team that wasn’t full of hired mercenaries.  Even Louisville went undefeated in an NCAA tournament with a team that wasn’t full of guys who left for the NBA after one year (I worded that sentence carefully).  Where’s the oversight?  Why do university presidents allow their athletic departments to be run like this?  If I was Villanova’s president, I’d be proud of the school’s basketball team.  If I was Duke’s president, I’d be ashamed of the mockery the basketball team is making of the university.  Just because the NBA has the one and done rule, that doesn’t mean that these colleges need to go after these players (which is why I’m in favor of providing them with more reasonable options if they don’t want to go to college).  The colleges owe their players an education.  When they don’t care if they provide an education, that’s a big problem that needs to be fixed (in both basketball and football).  If you recruit a good player who develops well over three years and decides to go to the NBA, there’s nothing wrong with that.  You didn’t recruit somebody that made a mockery of college athletics and they could probably easily return at some point and finish their degree.  The one and done players are not going to be returning to finish their degree.

I have one other unrelated change that I’d like to see made.  Let’s give more teams from the weaker conferences a chance.  I was disappointed that Notre Dame didn’t make the tournament.  I wasn’t surprised by it and I wasn’t really upset with being left out.  What annoyed me was that we were the first team out and Syracuse was the last team in.  We had the same ACC record, we got one round further in the ACC Tournament, and we beat them … on the road … without our two best players … who are now back.  But even if we took their place, we’d be the ninth ACC team in the tournament.  It would have made it more fun to be a Notre Dame fan for sure, but it’s not at all likely that we were going particularly far.  Possible yes, likely no.  But do we really need nine teams from a 15 team conference?  If you’re the seventh best team in the Big 12 (a conference with ten teams), do you really deserve a spot in the NCAA Tournament.  I would say no.  Give St. Mary’s and teams like that a chance.  My rule would be that you can’t get more than half of the teams from a conference into the NCAA tournament.  I could even live with no more than 60%.  That would make the regular season more meaningful.  You better take care of business in the regular season because you don’t want to be the ninth best ACC team.  That’s not going to be good enough.

Enjoy the tournament.  If you root for Michigan, Syracuse, Duke, North Carolina, or Kentucky, you deserve disappointment.  Make College Basketball Great Again.