Very Confusing, Perplexing, and Simply Dumb Revisions by the NCAA Have Hundreds of Coaches Doing More Than Just Scratching Their Heads
Rather than give the usual thoughts as if you were reading a Page 3 column from the late, great scribe in Mike Royko of Chicago Tribune fame during the latter part of the 20th century…I thought it would be best to narrow down the key subjects regarding the very muddy world that is summer recruiting.
More on that using the basic tenets of journalism in a few paragraphs below.
Simply put, all schools large and small will have plenty of turnover since we last saw them either early in March with the bittersweet Senior Night events and when CBS and the three Turner outlets gave the student’s name each time they stepped to the free throw line. When their class listing is mentioned as Seniors, the true graduates with diplomas firmly in hand have become as rare a breed as having cheap prices from your favorite grocery stores to the many rest areas that dot our Interstate Highway system across this great land of ours.
Other schools classified in the Blue Bloods and Power 5 conferences also have suffered with big-time defections to either the NBA, G League, or overseas to continue their hoop dreams. IMHO, I don’t have a problem with players sticking around for at least two or three years–like the Number 2 draft pick in Ja Morant, who had himself a season worthy of being called a stud for Murray State.
However, I have mixed feelings about the ‘one and done’ rule. Case in point during this past season, Zion Williamson of Duke had himself a monster season. If you read my blog the day after Selection Sunday in my virtual class and the little dream that involved nearly one dozen Briefcase Gals from the popular game show Deal or No Deal, I quoted ESPN analyst and 1986 Duke graduate Jay Bilas who was simply gushing over the sight of how dominant a player he truly was on the college stage.
Consider also the basketball factory that is the truly outspoken coach at Kentucky in John Calipari. Fans affiliated with Big Blue Nation usually having to resort in having some revised score sheets handy inside Rupp Arena so they can keep track of the many defections and/or transfers. This also makes the several hundred broadcasters from ESPN, CBS, along with other cable and Internet outlets–plus the hundreds of radio networks (a good handful you can find on the TuneIn app, just FYI) have somewhat a difficult time in squeezing the student’s major of choice.
By the time late June arrives, there is Coach Cal seen hugging his players being called up by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver as joining the best professional squad in the globe.
Just look at his Twitter account sometime, as many of his past players return to the practice gym (while mentioning their Twitter handles for free publicity) on the Lexington campus posing for pictures and seeing how successful his past talent has been bearing fruit.
Bottom line–regardless what family background these players come from, it is all about one thing and one thing only.
As Neil Diamond sang many years ago:
Money Talks
Well, it don’t dance and it don’t walk
After reading a rather lengthy article on The Athletic from this past Friday, I am sure many fans and some bandwagon fans are curious about what this revised recruiting process means both in the short and long term.
Here there are the five W’s and the one H that IMHO will be something to keep a brief eye on this week:
Who Is Involved?
The NCAA has teamed up with high school coaches (who in years past were mostly shut out as far as being general influencers in the recruitment process). The NBA and NBPA, along with USA Basketball came up with a few recruiting sessions–replacing the over two dozen camps that mostly involved grassroots efforts funded by shoe companies (Nike and Adidas among the chief companies).
What Events Are Taking Place?
Up to 600 players each in four regions of the United States will take part in NCAA sponsored sessions (think of them as seminars.) In June, coaches attended the NBPA Top 100 camp in Charlottesville, Virginia. For the first time ever, a 24-hour window was granted.
The problem was that the dates of this camp had a direct conflict with USA Basketball, when they held their U19 National Team tryouts. In other words, so many of the top-20 recruits were in Colorado Springs, Colo. Most schools outside of the major conferences, which is essentially the overwhelming majority of the 353 programs in Division I, have no real shot at signing any of those players so they chose not to spend the money from their recruiting budget to attend.
When will this all take place?
This week is the final live recruiting process for the summer.
Where will these events take place?
Events are held this week in these four regions:
- East, Connecticut
- Midwest, Illinois
- South, Houston
- West, Grand Canyon Region
Why is the NCAA doing this?
Two reasons that I can come with off the top of my head:
First, with the simple fact that the NCAA has been and is still to this day regarded as an archaic organization being a good 3 to 5 years behind the times so-to speak–their plan of getting to the roots of how these shoe companies successfully executed and got away with for over 35 years performing this “underground economy”, I feel that student-athletes have to follow the NCAA’s rule book sentence by sentence, word by word.
Even with several state high school athletic associations wanting a small piece of the pie, North Carolina has been cited since some schools are neither private nor public state run schools. These types of “independent” schools want their fair share of attention and basically, the pleas and online requests sent to the NCAA Headquarters in Indianapolis have all been falling on deaf ears.
If they somehow say yes, more often times then not it’s the familiar refrain of:
“Bye, see ‘ya. Nice knowing you. Thank you for coming. Next.”
Second, you can thank former Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice in her kickstarting that commission in summer 2018 which has led to this initial sad predicament.
Even Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey (who happens to be the President of the NABC) sent in a text to the same article mentioned above his concerns:
“We need to evaluate the new summer calendar in August and make adjustments. This is not a final product, but as coaches, we can have an open mind and then make suggestions to improve.”
Which leads to my final question, and a rather obvious one at that:
How Could All of This Junk Be Happening To Many Four and Five-Star Recruits?
The way I see it, after reading some articles online and hearing podcasts from the likes of Jon Rothstein of the CBS Sports Network, along with former coaches Seth Greenberg and Dan Dakich of ESPN–the NCAA has painted themselves not a pretty picture and it won’t be getting any better for quite some time.
Otherwise, you can all nitpick all you want until the cows come home.
In my world, I reside just a few miles away from a farm community. In addition, the area where I live was at one time a vast farmland until the Chicago Bulls were in the midst of their first of what would be two three-peat seasons.
In closing, leave it to Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer and 40 year ESPN commentator extraordinaire Dick Vitale to have the last word–when he simply mentioned via his Twitter account @Dick Vitale this statement on the morning of July 18:
Isn’t that the truth, ladies and gentlemen?
Hopefully, by the time the lid lifter to the 2019-2020 season takes place inside “The World’s Most Famous Arena” in New York on the evening of November 5, it will be interesting to see what type of rosters each of the 353 Division I schools have in terms of class makeup. As well, their goals as schools always remain the same–with their collective singular tasks on receiving those 68 coveted invites to the greatest tournament in the world come late March would be the most fulfilling Sunday night of all.
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