Arizona Basketball: NCAA Commission on College Basketball misses the mark

No. 5 C

ollege basketball committee glaringly avoids blaming NCAA and the current structure.

What we don’t see from the committee is any real blame or fault placed on the NCAA. This isn’t surprising, but it is beyond obvious they were wanting to avoid faulting the NCAA.

Nowhere in the report do we see anything about the rights of student-athletes. Nowhere do we see recommendations to allow the athletes the chance to market themselves. The blame is strictly on the NBA, NBPA, AAU and apparel companies.

As stated before, the one-and-done is an NBA and NBPA rule. The committee simply stated they will have to wait for those two associations to decide before they look at genuinely changing the system.

According to Lindsey Schnell, of USA TODAY Sports, a baseball-style rule was thought about during the committees’ meetings, but ultimately they decided not to pursue it.

"Rice said the Commission considered a baseball-style rule, where athletes are eligible right out of high school but if they choose to go to college, must stay for three years. They opted to forgo this route, noting that type of rule would “keep collegiate players ready for the NBA in school against their will, where they will be potentially disgruntled magnets for corrupt money.”"

The problem here is corrupt money is what brought this committee together. The NCAA is a multi-billion dollar “non-profit” organization. They have made unbelievable deals with TV networks, apparel companies and a wide variety of corporate sponsorship’s.

Arizona Wildcats Basketball

The NCAA has allowed apparel companies to make blockbuster multi-year deals with apparel giants Adidas, Nike and Under Armour. Their people get paid while the student-athlete is left trying to find enough money for dinner at times.

Do they really think these companies don’t run the show? The NCAA allowed the corruption to happen and did little to nothing to stop it. Now that they’ve been exposed, they want to deflect blame to everyone else.

So as much good seems to have come from the committee, it all doesn’t mean anything as long as the NCAA continues to hoard revenue. As long as players aren’t allowed to market themselves, like every other college student, the corruption will only continue.

Should we all be shocked some sort of decision on compensating athletes was ignored? No, not at all. It’s the NCAA for crying out loud. Compensating athletes, even in an Olympic style method, will continue to be pushed to the bottom by the NCAA as long as it can.

Next: Solution to the One-and-Done Rule

At least the report is something. It is no longer all talk. The discussion has been started and pushed in the right direction. It’s a start, which is far more than we’ve ever had.