Arizona Athletics: NCAA at war, threatens California schools, 4 in Pac-12

The NCAA warned California that if their newest bill passes to compensate college athletes, California schools will be banned from the NCAA Championships.

The NCAA, the NBA, and the shoe companies are all vying for position to make money from high school and college student-athletes. The players usually get the shaft, California lawmakers are trying to change this.

So who is in charge here? Is it the NCAA, a billion-dollar business? The shoe companies like Nike, Under Armor and Adidas? The NBA? The players? Nah, not the players, they are just pawns in the high school to college and pro landscape in all sports but most prominently in football and basketball. They should have more involvement though, along with compensation beyond the scholarship and money that barely covers their expenses in our opinion.

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• Reflections on the Pac-12, the Arizona Wildcats, and other memories
• Moving Day: Arizona Athletics Officially joins the Big XII
• Arizona vs. UCLA prediction and odds for Pac 12 Tournament final
• Arizona vs UCLA Bold Predictions and Special Promo (Back the Stars)

Here is a loose summary of the turn of event in the last year or so with regards to the NBA, the NCAA, the FBI, Dick Vitale and more related to changes after FBI Investigation goes public:

• The FBI Indicts four NCAA assistant coaches
• The NCAA and the Pac-12 begin investigations, but the NCAA Tournament is not canceled or affected for the last two years
• The NCAA Rice Commission recommends changes and the NCAA adopts the majority of them although the book is still out on players being able to return to college after not being drafted, but players can hire agents and test the waters now before the draft.
• The NCAA changed the recruiting calendar in a move to push college recruiting away from shoe companies. College coaches are limited in the timing of and which specific tournaments they are allowed to attend.
• The NBA Commissioner Joel Silver starts planning on retracting the one-and-done rule slated “In the near future,” and was “Swayed especially by an NCAA panel, headed by former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, that last year recommended abolishing the one-and-done rule.”
• The NBA G-League says they will offer a $125K contract for players opting out of college coming straight out of high school, but this is for Marvin Bagley type talent. Our opinion is this is the riskiest option as players such as Gabe York and Nick Johnson are still working to get to the NBA from of the G-League.
• Not to be outdone by the NBA Under Armour offered Darius Bazley a $1 million internship out of high school to prepare for the 2020 NBA Draft, with a $14 million kicker for signing on afterward
• Per the USA Today, “U.S. District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced former Adidas executive James “Jim” Gatto to nine months in prison and both former Adidas consultant Merl Code and former runner Christian Dawkins to six months in prison Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.”
• Mark Schlabach, who else, of ESPN reports that Arizona is one of the schools that is under NCAA investigation (Arizona has already admitted this) and will probably be notified of a Level I violation(s). As of the time of this post, nothing has happened yet.
• Sean Miller’s son Cameron Miller is playing high school basketball, Miller is allowed to attend his games as a dad, thus gets to scout unofficially, this is genius.
• USC’s Tony Bland who got probation and Arizona’s Emmanuel Richardson who got a three-month sentence plus probation for essentially the same bribery offense.
• Dick Vitale continues his campaign to get Sean Miller fired (we had to add this haha)
• Arizona commit Terry Armstrong opts out of college to go play professionally in Australia for a year, just like Terrence Ferguson did and LaMelo Ball plans to do after the Drew League.
•  Under Armour Intern Darius Bazley gets drafted 23rd in Round 1 to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
• California state Senate passed a bill to compensate student-athletes for their likeness.

Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY, reported on June 24th, that the “NCAA says California schools could be banned from championships if [a] bill isn’t dropped.” California has a bill on the table which would allow California-based college athletes to earn money “For the use of their own name, image or likeness, beginning in 2023.”

The NCAA shot back according to Berkowitz:

"In a letter to the chairs of two State Assembly committees last week, NCAA President Mark Emmert implied that if the bill becomes law as it is written, California schools could face the prospect of being prohibited from participating in NCAA championships. That includes 23 NCAA Division I schools, four of which are in the Pac-12 Conference.The bill overwhelmingly passed the state Senate last month."

Forbes SportsMoney reporter Marc Edelman reported the reason why he thinks the NCAA won’t be allowed to block this bill or bully it out of existence.

"..it is doubtful whether the NCAA could truly enforce a postseason ban on these grounds. Banning a member college for allowing athletes compensation in compliance with state law is likely an act that would violate federal antitrust laws, as well as California’s common law right to good faith and fair dealing.First, a trade association such as the NCAA may not enforce any bylaw that violates federal or state law. Second, a trade association must enact its bylaws in good faith, and in compliance with the “basic rudiments of due process.”"

The war isn’t over. It’s anyone’s guess who will win, but wouldn’t it be nice if everybody wins? Especially the players? Without them, none of this NCAA “business” is possible after all.