From the outset, the BCS was a joke as far as its place in college football is concerned. There is no national championship in the Football Bowl Subdivision; the winner of the BCS Championship Game is like the winner of the NIT Season Tip-Off or the Maui Invitational in basketball, not a national champion. (The Division I national champion will be either Sam Houston State or North Dakota State, who will play on Saturday.) The system is your basic old boy network applied to college football, as it’s designed to benefit the six conferences that were in on the whole deal all along. The Big East has been a laughingstock in football for a while now, yet it still gets its champion into a BCS bowl while more deserving teams – which often have included Petersen’s Broncos – are pushed back into less prestigious bowl games (and ones without nearly the same payout).

This year was a perfect example of that last point. West Virginia, who finished 23^rd in the final BCS standings, was in the Orange Bowl, while Boise State finished seventh was relegated to the Maaco Bowl and annihilated an Arizona State team that frankly had no business playing in a bowl game with a 6-6 record and a coach that was fired effective after the game.

It doesn’t end there, though. Additional teams in BCS bowl games that finished below Boise State are Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Michigan and Clemson. In other words, fully half of the ten teams in the BCS bowls finished below Boise State in the BCS rankings, showing that the bowl selections clearly were not made based on who the best teams were. Several of those teams – West Virginia, Clemson and Wisconsin – made it with automatic bids, but that still means two teams were selected over Boise State and clearly not on merit.

And in light of that, Petersen asked a very sensible question: “Why are we even voting?”

Petersen has generally bit his tongue over the years on the subject, but everyone has a threshold before they finally tell how they really feel. There’s no issue here; what he said made a lot of sense.

“I think everybody’s just tired of the BCS and that’s the bottom line,” Petersen told reporters. “Everyone’s just frustrated, no one even knows what to do anymore – it doesn’t make sense to anybody. I don’t think anybody is happy anywhere.”

One of the many flaws of the system is that the results of the weekly USA Today Coaches Poll is one of the factors in the scoring. Leaving out the obvious issue of human polls playing a role in this, Petersen also noted the conflict of interest for those who vote: “I know what I’m trying to do is make the best case for Boise State to get in there, I probably shouldn’t be a voter.”

But Petersen’s school is currently in the middle of the biggest reason the BCS is exceptionally bad for college sports. Boise State and San Diego State will be changing conferences in football only to – get this – the Big East. That’s right: the Big East, with its headquarters in Providence, R.I., is the future home of schools that are about 2700 (Boise State) and 2600 (San Diego State) miles away.

Indeed, all of the conference maneuvers we have seen in recent years – ones that make school presidents and conference commissioners look like they flunked geography, to say nothing of the sacrificing of great rivalries in some cases – can be traced to the BCS. These moves have only made less and less sense as time has gone along, and while basketball is not driving the train, it is taking a hit.

Miami and Virginia Tech leaving the Big East for the ACC made sense geographically. That started the domino effect: Boston College followed suit, fearing that the Big East was in jeopardy and that being in the ACC meant they would be in a powerhouse conference. The former happened, the latter has not, but the Eagles are an ACC outlier all the same; until Syracuse and Pittsburgh arrive, the closest school in the ACC to them is Maryland, more than an eight-hour drive away.

The Big East is really the epicenter of the insanity. Sure, the Pac-10 expanded to 12 schools (and changed its name to the Pac-12), and the SEC is headed to 14 by adding two from the Big 10, er, 12. But the Big East is where it really gets out of hand.

It started with the five schools they brought in from Conference USA after the aforementioned departures to the ACC, which expanded the conference’s footprint away from the east coast. It was set to continue with TCU, a four-hour flight from the conference headquarters, before TCU went to the Big 12 before they ever played an athletic contest in the Big East. Now Syracuse and Pittsburgh will leave, robbing the conference of two basketball powerhouses and some great rivalries, from the signature Georgetown-Syracuse to West Virginia-Pittsburgh (with West Virginia also leaving for, of all conferences, the Big 12, where they will be the easternmost school) and ones that both have developed over time with Connecticut.

But where things go beyond head-scratching is with the five schools that the Big East will soon add. Boise State and San Diego State make no sense geographically and are joining for football only. UCF makes sense since it is in the east coast, but Houston and SMU do not. Just the fact that some schools are joining in football only should illustrate the ridiculousness of it all. Boise State and San Diego State will be leaving the Mountain West in other sports, as the former goes back to the WAC after just one year and the latter will go to the Big West, where it should instantly be the signature program in basketball.

The real motivator on both ends is none other than the BCS and the added money it potentially brings a school. Boise State and San Diego State, along with the three schools joining in all sports, want access to the bowls that are under the BCS umbrella, to go with their higher payouts. The easiest way to do it is to get into one of the big six conferences. Meanwhile, the Big East has to at least look the part of a conference that is deserving of having its champion play in a prestigious bowl, not to mention they have to make up for three schools that are already slated to depart from the conference in the next few years. While Boise State will help them, and Houston might as well, the jury is out on the others.

The Big East is a basketball conference at heart. It was founded solely as that, adding football later. It became a powerhouse in basketball long before it added the best basketball schools from Conference USA several years ago, and has a great history. Now, football has co-opted the conference, leading to moves that hurt the end product on the hardwood. The conference is selling out basketball in the name of preserving the chance to add football dollars.

Boise State will instantly be the best team in the Big East on the gridiron. The question will be if the added money they might get from a BCS bowl appearance will offset the added costs of travel for many of their road games enough to be worth it. Additionally, will the other teams appreciate having to spend big money to travel across the country for a conference game? Plus, with all due respect to the programs, I’m not sure a matchup like Connecticut at San Diego State excites a lot of people as far as getting television interest goes.

What’s worse is that the conference maneuvering is probably not done yet. The BCS is, unfortunately, not going away anytime soon, so we shouldn’t expect all the ridiculousness to depart, either. Chris Petersen was on to something, although for just one of the reasons. The BCS is not good for college sports, only for those who are chasing dollars – even if chasing those dollars leads to losing some of the soul of college sports, which is something that should never be sacrificed.

The NCAA is entering new levels of ridiculous mismanagement. The Associated Press reports that the NCAA might reconsider giving new scholarship student-athletes a $2,000 stipend, though it would have to allow players who have already signed letters of intent to receive the extra cash while banning those who sign later.

Ohio State superstar Jared Sullinger is still hurting from recurring back spasms, and coach Thad Matta didn’t want to say when Sullinger will be back in the lineup for the Buckeyes, according to a CBS Sports.com wire report. But Sullinger answered that question Wednesday night when the Buckeyes beat down USC Upstate 82-58 and Sullinger played 24 minutes and got 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Nobody will face criminal charges in the Xavier/Cincinnati brawl, the Associated Press reports. Joe Deters, a Hamilton County, Ohio, prosecutor, looked into the matter, deciding not to pursue charges against anyone. One of the factors was Xavier center Kenny Frease’s satisfaction with an apology from Cincinnati’s Yancy Gates, who decked Frease in the head during the debacle.

Seton Hall will gain some more depth this weekend with the return of freshman Brandon Mobley, who had been out with a dislocated shoulder and torn labrum since the summer, according to the Associated Press.

Don’t skip your court appearances. Nothing good can happen. Just ask Kansas’ Ben McLemore. The freshman is under arrest after skipping a Dec. 6 court appearance for a citation related to underage alcohol possession, according to a CBS Sports.com wire report.

Also on the list of bad behavior is taunting fans by grabbing your crotch. New Mexico State sophomore Christian Kabongo did that, and now he’s suspended, writes Diamond Leung for ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog.

Syracuse still has Melo — Fab Melo that is. If you thought I was talking about Carmelo Anthony, well, I kinda was. The NBA star who led the Cuse to a championship is convinced that Melo 2.0 and the rest of the crew have the talent to win another championship for the first time since 2003.

I’m not gonna lie — I love the fan experience. And if you tell me that a team in California’s tradition is to throw tortillas when a victory is in hand, I find it amusing. I mean, a flying tortilla — presumably uncooked soft tortilla — won’t hurt anyone. Except when your team is only up two and the officials consider giving the home crowd a technical. Yep, that’s how UC-Santa Barbara’s 65-61 win against San Diego went down, writes Diamond Leung for ESPN.com. When the fans started tossing tortillas, the officials considered tossing out a T. They opted to go with a public announcement that any more thrown items would produce two free throws for the Toreros. The fans settled down, and the Gauchos won.

According to the allegations, Caldwell and Bender helped to recruit six men’s basketball players and five football prospects. Central Florida’s Athletic Director Keith Tribble, as well as football coach David Kelly and men’s basketball coach Donnie Jones, were aware of this contact, according to the NCAA.

The NCAA also claims that Caldwell and Bender paid the tuition and fees for Central Florida’s men’s basketball players, provided funding for transportation of men’s basketball recruits, and provided a laptop to a football recruit.

Amid these allegations, Tribble and Kelly have both resigned. Jones is suspended for three conference games without pay.

The NCAA has recently cleared Jeff Jordan to play, but A.J. Rompza is still sitting out as his eligibility has yet to be determined. Marcus Jordan, P.J. Gaynor, and Josh Crittle are also not playing due to an unspecified violation of team rules. The have no timetable for return.

The loss of these players is a major hit to UCF’s mens basketball team. They were poised to have a breakout season. Last year, they spent some time in the top 25, going undefeated before conference play. As conference play hit, injuries contributed to their collapse.

The NCAA has long wanted to regulate the world of grassroots basketball, and they have attained some measure of that in recent years. None of it has been good, though, and that’s true by just about any measure. They first took away the ability of Division I coaches to attend fall travel team events, then reduced the spring to only events sanctioned by state high school associations during the month of April. A couple of years ago, that went away, leaving coaches with just the month of July for seeing a large number of players in one setting. It wasn’t good for many coaches, and they weren’t alone.

“It puts so much pressure on the kids to perform in this one month,” said one travel team coach.

But that wasn’t enough for the NCAA. They now regulate scouting services, as the NCAA would deem it a violation to purchase/subscribe to a service that doesn’t have its blessing. Earlier this year, the use of Division I facilities for camps or travel team tournaments was banned permanently (a ban had been in effect since October of 2009 pending new legislation, which was finalized a few months ago). And in July, media members were not allowed to sit with college coaches at such events, after being allowed to do so for many years. The rationale, according to multiple sources, is that there have been “media” members who covered one school’s recruiting basically acting as a connector from coach to prospect, during a time where coaches are not allowed to have contact with recruits. Yet media members could talk to college coaches in a lobby or outside of the same gym.

And when you add in that there has been talk of the entire month of July being dead to Division I coaches in the future, one thing seems clear: the world of basketball prior to the professional ranks has been turning into a police state.

Earlier this month, a release on the NCAA’s official Web site indicated that the NCAA’s Division I Leadership Council has made a lot of progress on a model for the future of men’s basketball recruiting. The work is far from complete, but if the early returns are any indication, there is actually reason for some optimism. The Council reached consensus on several items, according to the release, with four standing out:

• A start date for official visits beginning after the men’s basketball championship in April of the junior year.
• Deregulating the type of communication between coaches and prospects (including text messaging and other forms of electronic communication).
• Allowing unlimited communication after Aug. 1 before the junior year in high school.
• Permitting evaluations at certified nonscholastic events on two weekends in April, with some restrictions.

The future of the summer recruiting period must be resolved, and given the NCAA’s track record, there is reason for cynicism. But the items noted above would all be refreshing changes if they go into effect.

The first item makes sense because nowadays, players make unofficial visits all the time from playing in travel team tournaments and camps. Even when those events are not played on Division I campuses, players often make a visit either in between games or they travel separately from their team so as to visit before or after the event. Whether or not many such visits will happen at schools that have football is not clear, as a key part of hosting recruits for many schools is to bring them to a football game and show them what the campus is like when an athletic event is held there.

The second and third items are very noteworthy because they represent a sea change in the current regulation on communication. It also makes a lot of sense: college coaches have had increasingly less access to players, yet save for the kids they have the most riding on this. Anything allowing the coaches more access to the players they are recruiting is a positive. For that matter, banning text messaging outright was a move that made little sense in the first place and makes less sense now, so a change would be welcome.

The last item addresses something noted earlier. The weekends in April should never have been taken away from college coaches in the first place, especially given the rationales cited for it. Among others was the oft-cited “influence of third parties”, which frustrates anyone who has a clue about what is going on for a simple reason: just about all of the legislation the NCAA has enacted with the goal of reducing said influence has only increased their role in this because college coaches get less access as a result.

April events were made dead to Division I coaches with the idea that the events would not go on without the college coaches, but anyone who knows that major events take place in May and June – which have long been dead to college coaches – knew that the games would go on, and they did. And while Division I coaches couldn’t be there in April, you can be sure that the “third parties” were.

If the weekends in April come back for Division I coaches, their lives will be easier. New head coaches will have a chance to see players they might sign as they scramble to fill out their roster for their first season. Current head coaches will be able to figure out who they need to track more closely when July comes around. And for once, the kids will be winners as well because they have more chances to be seen by coaches and recruited to the proper level.

The NCAA has a laudable goal of wanting to ensure a level playing field. But the kind of level playing field the NCAA seeks is simply impossible to attain. Every school is different for a variety of reasons, and those reasons include things like resources, facilities and past success that are often key selling points to recruits. The NCAA should understand this and realize that attempts at making schools with drastic differences look equally attractive to high school players is futile.

The NCAA has passed a lot of bad legislation on this front in recent years, and the current work is far from done. For once, the potential changes seem positive, however, so there is finally reason for some optimism. Let’s hope there still is at a later date.

Preliminarily, you need to know who you are reading. I was once upon a time a college basketball assistant, most recently spending a year on Dan Dakich’s staff at Bowling Green. Later, I spent four years as a radio analyst (and Hoopville writer) in Boston, the last two for Northeastern’s Bill Coen. Most of the rest as a litigator, most of those years representing insurance interests. I developed the view that most civil lawsuits are frivolous, that we have too many lawyers in America (by a factor of 10), and that nothing I can think of is more disgusting than middle class Americans with a lawyer’s phone number on speed-dial (don’t much like the concept of speed-dial, but really hate individuals’ rights of recent-vintage to sue). The reader should know I have worked Title IX lawsuits (in fact, on the plaintiffs’ side), so I know from whence I speak.

When I last wrote for Hoopville, former USC star and current NBA player O.J. Mayo was being unfairly criticized in the media, as if any of us would have turned down many thousands of dollars in our early 20s (or even now), and not for the first time in print I called the major problem in college sport the fact that the NCAA truly stands for the “National Collegiate Allocation Association.” Never a fan of “employee rights,” and very much a fan of the world back when employment was truly “employment at will,” I articulated before the current round of NCAA-bashing that when we turn on our televisions to watch games on ESPN and CBS, while the astute among us are interested in coaching moves (and behavior), we are primarily watching the players. Also that while coaches make millions, ADs, university presidents and lots of professors make nearly that much, libraries are built and women’s – and lesser men’s – teams funded, the kids we turn on the television to watch make nothing.

In short, what we’ve done is take minor league football and basketball (men’s), and instead of playing the games in small town America in front of 2,000 (like baseball does), we’ve tied minor league football and basketball to America’s institutions of higher learning, and put those games in Michigan Stadium in front of 100,000 (and in front of millions on television). And oh yeah, don’t tell me the $57,000 tuition at Miami is “compensation”; we all know that none of these kids would even think of paying $57,000 a year for college (heck, my parents said back in the day: “Harvard, Yale or the state university at 25% of the private school price”). And since economists will tell you that the true value is the value to the specific consumer in question, I must conclude that “athletic scholarships” should be valued at about $0; in truth, they should be valued as negatives, as every one of these athletes would rather JUST play minor league football or basketball without going to school, and attending class at the University of Miami is a “have to” rather than an economic benefit.

All right, this article is about Title IX. First, a nickel’s worth of law. No lawyer would dispute that sixty years ago, “Title IX” would have failed to pass constitutional muster. Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, provides that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” As applied, Title IX has come to mean equal rights in funding, and equal numbers of scholarships. That nickel’s worth: all lawyers know that under the Fourteenth Amendment, “[n]o state shall…; nor shall any state… deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”; also that statutes addressing gender are subject to “intermediate scrutiny” under the Fourteenth Amendment, meaning that in a constitutional challenge the government bears the burden of proving that gender-based classification is “substantially related to an important government interest.” Two thoughts on this: first, no lawyer in America, even today, can argue with a straight face a constitutional application of Title IX to require equivalent budgets, scholarships, etc. at private universities; private universities are simply not subject to government control under the Fourteenth Amendment (“nor shall any state… deny…”).

Second, even for state universities, there has always been an “important government interest” that would be served by a statute – state or federal – permitting unequal spending for men’s and women’s sports: people watch men’s sports (at least football and basketball) and those teams can – sometimes even do – earn a profit, while no one watches women’s sports – and few watch other men’s sports – and there is no way those sports will ever earn a profit for any university.

That said, few if any have addressed the biggest issue facing college athletic departments today: that is, while it may be reasonable – economically as well as intellectually – to pay football and men’s basketball players, there is neither intellectual justification nor any source of funds from which to pay athletes in lesser men’s sports or those in any women’s sport. So now is the time to correct a wrong, and the interest in paying players is a good excuse to do what we should have done thirty or more years ago.

No more on the law, I promise. But indulge me on what Title IX is really all about (both “then” and now). First, in the early 80s, when the NCAA didn’t even include women’s teams, and fledgling women’s programs were regulated by a governing body known as the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), most schools added to an administrative position the designation of “Primary Administrator for Women’s Athletics,” most of those positions were given to women, and most issues pertinent to women’s sports went to (or through) those administrators. However, with my law degree, title of Assistant to the AD for Academic Affairs, and role of interpreting and applying NCAA rules to our men’s teams, our Athletic Director quite sensibly assigned to me a similar role for our women’s teams. In that context he approached me one year in early August, and suggested I attend a conference on AIAW rules to be held in Cherry Hill, N.J. Well, I jumped at the chance for an all-expense paid summer weekend down on the shore, and there I was at the Hyatt on Friday morning for the first session of a two and a half day conference.

Well, among over five hundred university administrators charged with learning (and applying) the AIAW rules, I was among less than a half-dozen males (generally not a bad ratio). However, when the conference began, it was clearly not a conference about the details of athletic rules (GPAs needed to enroll and to remain eligible, minimum SATs, “normal progress,” etc.); in fact, at one point, I remember someone saying from the podium, “if you want to know the rules, read the book.” Okay, some law school classes weren’t all that different. But then, the conference quickly morphed into a diatribe against men, how they’re “keeping us down,” and how horrible it is for all of us to report to “male Athletic Directors,” and how we should all call the human resource officers and attorneys that we know, and stand up for our rights. By 11 a.m. that first morning, that was the only subject that had yet been discussed (well, that and who was going to sleep with whom that night at the hotel), so I left, finding the discourse more to my liking at Garden State Racetrack and in a casino a few miles to the south.

At around that same time, I remember my first head coach (I had that old fashioned “dual role”) teaching me his preference that our recruiting and similar letters be signed, respectively, as Head Coach or Assistant Coach of Basketball, which I agreed was classier than Head or Assistant Basketball Coach. However, one day I found a pile of the head coach’s letters that I’d drafted returned to me for “correction,” our AD more than “suggesting” that I now complete the signature block by designating my boss as “Head Coach of men‘s Basketball.” I never quite liked the ring to that.

Then there’s the business of equal pay. Everyone knows the success of women’s basketball at the University of Connecticut (politically, and in terms of wins). That said, while I got to know UConn Men’s Basketball Coach Jim Calhoun while broadcasting, I confess that I have never met women’s coach Gino Auriemma. But, I find it odd that he makes almost as much money as Calhoun, given that he only took the job all those years ago because he couldn’t get a job (even a volunteer job) in the men’s game. And oh yes, being pretty sure that Bob Knight became the winningest coach in the sport before retiring a couple of years ago, can anyone even suggest with a straight face that his record has been placed in jeopardy by Pat Summitt at Tennessee? (All the while, I join many others in wishing her well in her battle with early onset dementia after being diagnosed with it earlier this week.)

Penultimately, New Yorkers and others among us will remember within the last five or six years the event that caused radio “shock-jock” morning host Don Imus to be fired by CBS (and lose his morning drive-time gig on WFAN and syndicated around the country). Some of you will remember him “pushing the envelope” of humor with a rather disparaging comment I won’t repeat here about members of Rutgers’ women’s basketball team. That said, many commentators who haven’t coached or litigated mistook the human outcry at Imus’ remark: this ex-coach/lawyer is certain that he wasn’t fired for a disparaging comment about African-Americans; nor was he fired for a disparaging comment about women. What Don Imus was fired for was a disparaging comment against the most defensive group in world history, the group with the largest chip on its collective shoulder, women’s athletes. And check with your local attorney, such comments truly are unforgivable.

Lastly, without revealing names allow me to relate the story of a recent Title IX claim. A young African-American woman came into our office, not particularly feminine but not altogether butch, claiming she’d been discriminated against by the assistant women’s basketball coach at her junior college. She had apparently played girls’ basketball in high school, not been recruited to play in college, and then showed up as a student at the local community college. Recognizing that the college recruits all or virtually all of its players, offering scholarships while they are still in high school, and also recognizing that the young lady was legally blind, she nonetheless asked a coach if she could try out and potentially walk on, and the coach suggested that she might be able to. Thereafter, the first date of practice was adjusted, and while the scholarship players were all informed, this young lady wasn’t, and the beginning of practice – and opportunity to try out – came and went without her attendance. She came to us with an interest in suing the coach individually and also the institution, for violating her rights under, among other legal theories, Title IX. What rights could those possibly have been? And what damages could she possibly have incurred?? And how could she have possibly played college basketball legally blind??? And worst of all, we took the case!

So allow me to make clear, while it is time we stopped using football and basketball players to sell beer and soft drinks, pay coaches, and build libraries, and it is time we began paying them, and while it is true that we can’t legally pay just football and men’s basketball players under Title IX, and while in this economy there is surely no ready source of funds to pay college volleyball players (of either gender), more than a means toward the goal of paying a fair wage to players currently working as slaves, this call to pay players is really an excuse to right a wrong long understood by everyone involved in college sport, on either side of the issue. Title IX is wrong, both financially and intellectually, Title IX would never have passed constitutional muster in the past, and Title IX is encouraging young women to look and act more like men. What’s more, Title IX is silly, always has been, and everybody knows it.

Yes, a great excuse to abolish!

(The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of Hoopville Media Services, LLC or Hoopville.com.)

By now, we’re all familiar with a rash of NCAA violations that have happened in recent years regarding extra benefits. Players have accepted cash, jewelry, electronic items, cars and much more, and there have been allegations of players’ parents or others close to them asking for money to get them to commit to the school. We’re also familiar with how flush with cash the NCAA is, and measures of it are everywhere. There’s the $771 million a year television contract for the NCAA Tournament in men’s basketball, as well as the nearly $2 million a year that NCAA President Mark Emmert takes home in salary.

The usual argument for paying players looks at those signs of riches, then notes how players don’t get a penny of it. They say that a scholarship, which nowadays is worth over $40,000 a year at many schools, is simply not enough. They mention the added costs of attendance, which are not insignificant, and the commissioners of the Big Ten and SEC have spoken in favor of allowing their member schools to include this for their athletes.

All of them make some sense on a basic level. Economics and other realities change all of that.

While it’s true that new television deals are helping big-time programs become flush with cash, it’s not spreading to all schools. Most of the big money also comes from football, which is the driver behind a lot of things like new deals and conference shuffling. In fact, many schools get a large amount of their revenue from things like student fees and ticket sales. Hence the big money deals that make the news might skew the perception, but the reality is a little different for many schools.

For a good example, one need only look to last season’s big story in the NCAA Tournament. After signing head coach Shaka Smart to a new contract nearly quadrupling his salary, VCU announced a plan to raise student fees by $50 per student. More than a third of the fee goes toward intercollegiate athletics.

It doesn’t end there. If you’re going to pay the Heisman candidate running back or the star point guard, you also have to pay the third-string quarterback who may never be good enough to play in a non-blowout as well as the project center who barely gets off the bench because he’s so raw. For that matter, you can’t just pay the football and men’s basketball players (and perhaps the men’s ice hockey players in some schools as well) – there are also the baseball players, women’s volleyball, track and field, and so forth.

With the sheer number of athletes that covers, even paying them $100 a month will generate a fairly large bill that a lot of schools aren’t likely to be able to afford. And if you think a school can avoid this issue by just paying the revenue sport athletes, think again. This is a litigious society we live in, and as such that is sure to be contested legally, especially with Title IX in place.

But even if this could be taken care of somehow – whether some form of revenue sharing like we’ve seen in pro sports leagues or some other measure – it’s far from a given that this would put an end to extra benefit violations. In fact, a look at human behavior and the desire for more shows that cracking open the door the slightest bit won’t keep it there – instead, it would lead to people blowing the door open and crashing through to try to get more. Paying players wouldn’t stop at just giving them a small amount of money; you can be sure schools would try to find ways to pay some players a good deal more than that in violation of new rules. In addition, as that happens, players getting paid leads to violations then being harder to prove, as illustrated in an excellent column on the subject by colleague Pat Forde of ESPN.com.

One might say that instead of all of this, why not make the athletes employees? That brings along its own set of issues that are not easily resolved, not the least of which is that once again, all of the athletes would have to be employees, not just the football and men’s basketball players.

Talking about pay for play is not a bad idea. It is a conversation worth having. But at the end of the day, not only does it face serious headwinds to adoption, it also doesn’t seem likely to solve the problem proponents hope it will. Proponents of the idea probably shouldn’t get their hopes up.

Go coast to coast with a roundup of news from across the nation.

1. Starting next season, players will no longer be able to test the NBA Draft waters. According to the Associated Press, the NCAA approved a rules change that forces players to decide whether they wish to remain eligible for the NBA Draft by the first day of the spring signing period for recruits. This move helps college coaches replace departing players. But it kills players’ opportunity to gauge their draft stock as few NBA teams are prepared to provide full predictions by mid-April.
2. George Mason wasted no time in finding a new coach. According to the Associated Press, the Colonials picked former Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt, who was fired at Georgia Tech this past season after 11 years and a 190-162 record. In more than a decade with the Yellow Jackets, Hewitt established a reputation for recruiting top-notch talent, but he only made one deep run in the NCAA Tournament, losing to Connecticut in the 2004 championship game. He replaces Jim Larranaga, who left the school to coach Miami.
3. Nearby, in Washington, D.C., George Washington will be in search of a new coach after firing Karl Hobbs, according to the Associated Press. Hobbs led the Colonials for 10 years, including a great 2005-06 season in which George Washington finished 27-3 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
4. And in Atlanta, Georgia Tech replaced Paul Hewitt with Brian Gregory, choosing Dayton’s coach over several other candidates, including a 15-year-old from Connecticut. Wha?! According to the Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy, Ethan Peikes sent Georgia Tech Athletic Director Dan Radakovich a letter containing a cogent argument for why Peikes should become the Yellow Jackets’ next coach.
5. Colgate presumably didn’t get any applications from 15-year-olds, but the school did find its coach from a relatively young member of the coaching ranks. According to the Associated Press, Colgate hired 33-year-old Temple assistant Matt Langel to replace Emmett Davis, who was dismissed after 13 seasons and a 165-212 record.
6. Wisconsin extended the contract of coach Bo Ryan through 2015-16, ensuring stability for one of the best programs in the Big Ten, according to the Associated Press. Ryan has a 242-91 record in 10 seasons in Madison, and his teams regularly excel in the NCAA Tournament and enjoy one of the toughest home court advantages in basketball.
7. Likewise, in Athens, Ga., coach Mark Fox received an extension with Georgia. The Bulldogs will keep Fox through 2015-16 and increase his pay to $1.7 million per year, according to the Associated Press.
8. Amid coaching changes, some players decide it’s time for a fresh start, especially if a new coach has a significantly different system. That looks to be the case at North Carolina State, according to Eamonn Brennan of ESPN.com’s “College Basketball Nation” blog. Freshman point guard Ryan Harrow will leave the Wolfpack to look for a fresh start rather than play for new coach Mark Gottfried.
9. Give coach Bill Self credit. Even though Kansas is losing plenty of firepower this off-season, the Jayhawks will face a brutal schedule next season, with Kentucky and Ohio State definitely on the horizon, according to the Associated Press. Kansas also will be in the Maui Invitational with Duke, UCLA, Georgetown, Memphis, Tennessee and Michigan.
10. And Kansas might find some tougher competition out of Oklahoma in the Big 12 than originally expected. New Sooners coach Lon Kruger has added two Juco players recently to help hasten the rebuilding of the Oklahoma program, according to Sports Illustrated’s “Fan Nation” blog.
11. Louisville coach Rick Pitino has completed a major overhaul of his staff, according to the Associated Press. Pitino added Kevin Keatts as an assistant coach. Keatts arrives at Louisville after coaching Hargrave Military Academy for 10 seasons and winning two national prep championships. Keatts joins Wyking Jones and Pitino’s son Richard on the staff.
12. Quick hits from the NCAA’s attendance report, via ESPN.com’s Eamonn Brennan for the “College Basketball Nation” blog: total number of people attending games is up compared with 2009-10, average per Division I game is down a tad (because of more Division I schools), and average NCAA Tournament attendance is down slightly.

HOME COURT ADVANTAGE

The general consensus is that the NCAA is being selfish in its decision to change the rules on players testing the NBA Draft as early entrants. It’s hard to argue with that sentiment, though the NCAA has an opportunity to do right by student-athletes.

The NCAA is responsible for guiding student-athletes through the collegiate educational experience. That’s not my take; it’s theirs. From the NCAA’s website:

The NCAA’s core purpose is to govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount.

By shifting the deadline for players to decide whether they will remain in the NBA Draft or return to school to mid-April, the NCAA is robbing student-athletes of a chance to maximize their educational experience. To borrow a Texas Hold ‘Em poker analogy, the NCAA will be forcing players to go all-in or fold before the flop while letting them see only one card.

In recent years, players have been able to figure out the strength of their draft hand — to see that other card — by receiving evaluations from NBA scouts during late April and May. A few years ago, players had until June to decide whether they’d remain in the draft or return to school. NCAA coaches hated that because they didn’t know what their roster would like and how they should adjust their recruiting strategy in the spring.

The first step in this anti-player direction was a change to the players’ decision deadline to early May. That prevents players from receiving much information, but they can at least make an educated decision about the likelihood that a team will pick them in the first round.

To clarify what’s at stake, the NBA only guarantees contracts to first-round picks. If you’re No. 31, you have to compete with every other unrestricted free agent, NBA Developmental League player and international walk-on who wants a shot at an NBA contract. Good luck. Oh, and you can’t go back to your college team. When early entrants remain in the draft, they’re no longer eligible. You don’t hear of too many players who pay to earn a degree without a scholarship from a school if they fall out of the first round and don’t receive a contract.

For NCAA early entrants, the NBA Draft can be a life-altering decision. Because the NCAA will restrict the relevant information that student-athletes can gather by the mid-April deadline, the NCAA has the responsibility to fulfill its core purpose: ensure that the educational experience is paramount. And that experience is paramount to the self-centered interests of coaches who fear they’ll lose their jobs without NBA-caliber players on their roster instead of leftover recruits.

For the NCAA to fulfill that purpose, it needs to create a method for student-athletes to receive NBA evaluations throughout the season. Perhaps the NCAA should form a consortium of current or former NBA scouts who provide monthly ratings or reviews, citing comments from NBA executives. If the NCAA wants to follow the money, it would need to wade into the world of sports agents, who are perhaps most motivated to gauge players’ value and translate that into NBA dollars. An objective sports agent might not exist, but that’s for the NCAA to figure out.

As the rules stand now, the NCAA is failing its student-athletes. A failed system is bound too fall apart as soon as a better alternative presents itself. And that could quickly emerge from the heavily financed underworld of unscrupulous sports agencies and self-employed talent consultants, who might take an even more aggressive stance and try to fill a need in this evaluation process — if the NCAA doesn’t step up to fully educate its players.

Yeah, I said it. And yes, I recognize my bias as a college basketball writer and unapologetic fan.

But really, how can you argue about the thrills of a single-elimination tournament in which 65 out of 347 teams — 18.7 percent — qualify for the field? Within three weeks and a day after Selection Sunday, a new champion cuts down the nets after winning six consecutive games. To accomplish that feat, the eventual champion must beat a collection of teams that have proven to be among the best throughout the entire season.

But alas, there’s money involved — lots of it. The NCAA is nearly three-quarters through an 11-year, $6 billion contract with CBS. The value of that contract is staggering but justified. NCAA officials suspect that they could net an even bigger contract by adding more teams to the tournament, thus adding another round.

When the NHL lost an entire season to a prolonged strike in 2004, ESPN filled its suddenly open midweek prime time schedule with more college basketball games. Guess what? Fans watched. Now we have Big Monday, Super Tuesday and ACC Wednesday. It’s like a list of bar specials.

However, the only post-season action ESPN gets is the play-in game and NIT. Do you think Disney executives would like a shot at bidding on the rights to televise an extra round of the NCAA Tournament? They might even make a play for all rounds before the Sweet 16, if not the whole kit and kaboodle. Regardless of what offer ESPN execs might be cooking up, the sheer economics of open markets dictates that the NCAA would get an even bigger contract from CBS or Disney if the association opts out of its CBS contract by this summer.

Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany recently said he thinks the NCAA Tournament will probably expand by next season. Delany is one of the power brokers in Division I college basketball, though he does not sit on any committees that will decide the fate of the NCAA Tournament. And let’s hope that somehow, despite the potential windfall, he’s wrong.

Take a look at how the NCAA Tournament compares to other major sports’ post-seasons.

• MLB: Eight teams out of 30 (26.7 percent) participate in a tournament that lasts four to five weeks.
• NBA: 16 teams out of 30 (53.3 percent) participate in a tournament that lasts eight to nine weeks.
• NCAA Division I football: 68 teams out of 119 (57.1 percent) participate in bowl games. However, there’s no tournament, and computerized calculations determine the national championship game match up.
• NHL: 16 teams out of 30 (53.3 percent) participate in a tournament that lasts eight to nine weeks.
• NFL: 12 teams out of 32 (37.5 percent) participate in a tournament that lasts four weekends in five weeks.

Not surprisingly, the NBA and NHL post-season gauntlet is utterly exhausting — for players and fans. It’s not a good thing if teams limit key players’ minutes throughout the regular season to keep them fresh for the post-season. Likewise, fans struggle to maintain energized through a two month-long playoff run. The NHL and NBA both hovered around 10 million viewers for most of their championship series games. That’s a third less than the numbers the NCAA Tournament and BCS championship tallied. The World Series Game 6 clincher for the Yankees drew 22 million fans — mostly because it’s the Yankees. And of course, the juggernaut that is the Super Bowl set a record this year with 106 million viewers.

The NCAA Tournament championship games regularly draws 17 million to 23 million viewers, making it one of the three most popular championships among major U.S. sports. Would adding another round and stretching it out to four weeks diminish interest? That could easily happen if the effect of expansion is sloppy games played by mediocre teams.

If the NCAA expands the tournament to 96 teams, it almost certainly would need to fold the NIT, which would be stuck with the third- or fourth-best teams from mid-major and minor conferences or cellar dwellers from power conferences. In recent years, the NCAA purchased the NIT to dodge an antitrust lawsuit and has reinvigorated the secondary post-season tournament. But despite the improvements to the NIT, anyone watching this year’s NIT would be hard pressed to argue that those teams belong in the NCAA Tournament. The quality of play is not on the same level as NCAA Tournament games.

In the consumer marketplace, corporations that openly slash quality in favor of a quick profit tend to face an immediate backlash. In the NCAA’s case, the public outcry would be loud and vitriolic. But the NCAA has a monopoly on the post-season. And even if we shout about unworthy teams reaching the supposedly most exclusive post-season tournament, we’ll still watch. And the NCAA executives know that.

Ironically, the only way to show the NCAA executives that expansion is a terrible idea would be to stop watching the regular season and early rounds of the NCAA Tournament if they do opt for 96 teams. If the NCAA feels like it can cash in on the rich value of its product, a collective disinterest in the regular season would tarnish that value. But that would mean we all lose.

Expansion is understandable, especially when the NCAA has an opportunity to unearth a pot of gold in the middle of a recession. And inviting more teams to the Big Dance sounds fair. But it’s a short-sighted strategy with potentially serious ramifications that would undermine the value of the product that NCAA executives are so proud of in the first place.

The NCAA Tournament isn’t broken. Stop trying to fix it.

At the 2009 NCAA Convention on Friday, proposal 2007-30-C became a final piece of legislation, as 54 percent (188) voted to support it and 45 percent (154) voted to override it.  During the 60-day override period after the legislation was adopted last April, 62 requests to override came in, well above the 30 needed to initially defeat the measure.  But since the number was less than 100, the board of directors could still adopt it pending a full membership vote at the convention, and opted to do so in August.

As has been stated and elaborated on here before, there are a number of practical reasons to hope that this legislation would be defeated.  This legislation will certainly not accomplish what it allegedly sets out to, but make things worse.  On top of that, there’s so much hypocrisy and grandstanding among those supporting it that it’s probably symbolic that the full membership vote on it took place just outside Washington – a place where those two traits are certainly not in short supply.

The hypocrisy and grandstanding all concern academics.  A key motive for this was related to academics, as the legislation’s text expressed a concern about missed class time by student-athletes who participate in these events.  Put aside that this concern is overblown and misses the fact that live weekends in April often include the week that schools are on vacation, as well as the fact that only a small number of the student-athletes even play to the end of these events on Sunday.  That’s reality, but it’s not as important.

The reality is that making these events dead to Division I coaches is not going to mean an end of the events by a long shot.  Players play; they go to these events to compete.  Getting seen by Division I coaches is just the icing on the cake.  There are plenty of such events in May on dead weekends, and even in April on weekends like the Final Four, where coaches cannot be on the road, or even national SAT/ACT week.  Supporters think college coaches attending these events is a tacit endorsement of less academic focus, which is nothing short of ridiculous.

But more to the point, Damon Evans, the athletic director at Georgia and the chair of the newly-formed NCAA Leadership Council, said in the NCAA’s release on this, “By overriding this particular piece of legislation, what we would be saying to our prospective student-athletes is that academics doesn’t matter.”

This is a very interesting comment from an athletic director considering the turnover in head coaches every year.  Aside from NCAA violations, coaches are hired and fired based on wins and losses, not the academic achievement of their players.  Where has Evans been all these years when coaches have been fired despite having a solid graduation rate?  Doesn’t that tell prospective student-athletes that academics don’t matter, more powerfully than not allowing coaches to properly evaluate the young men they are recruiting?  I don’t recall Evans speaking out or trying to pass legislation that would change this so we can send a powerful message about the importance of academics to the student-athletes, current and prospective.

In fact, let’s keep an eye on the coaching situation at Evans’ school.  Dennis Felton has been speculated to be on the hot seat there, but the team’s media guide notes that he has a 100 percent graduation rate in a tenure that started after an academic scandal at the school with the prior coaching staff.  He entered this season with a 75-80 record, and the Bulldogs are currently 9-9 in 2008-09.  If the Bulldogs finish the season at, say, 17-16, giving him a record of 92-96, let’s see if Felton still has a job for next year in Athens.  Let’s see how much academics really matter to Evans.  Let’s see what kind of message we tell prospective student-athletes about how much academics matter.

Evans isn’t alone on this, however.  The Division I Men’s Basketball Issues Committee, a major supporter of this, is composed of several athletic directors.  These are the same people who fire coaches based on wins and losses, no matter the academics.  While coaches are held accountable for academics, save for a scandal that involves an NCAA investigation and sanctions, I don’t recall a coach getting fired because his players were consistently sub-par academic achievers, or even keeping his job because he graduated everyone.  Now all of a sudden athletic directors want to be concerned about academics?

Don’t believe for a second that the real motive behind this legislation has anything to do with academics.  That may be what supporters are publicly saying, but it’s inconsistent with most other actions and it doesn’t stand up to reality.  Put this in the category of their latest failed attempt to regulate travel team basketball at the high school level, because that’s what this really is.

Another reason this will be a failure is that the legislation is not going to accomplish a couple of things noted in the rationale for it.  Most notably, the legislation mentions that it wants to address “the disruption to the relationship between NCAA Division I basketball coaches and their own student-athletes during a critical academic time period and the increasing role of outside influences during the April contact period.”  Let’s look at both, because a few coaches had some things to say on these matters as well.

By taking away these recruiting weekends, coaches will now be on the road recruiting during the week in April, and at multiple sites.  Put aside the fact that this will be a budget-buster for a lot of schools – especially those outside of BCS conferences – and that we’re in a terrible economy right now, whereas they could see many kids in one setting on weekends in a more cost-effective manner.  The more relevant thing is that the current student-athletes are in class during the week, when coaches now have to recruit, and not on weekends.  This doesn’t seem to address a disruption to the relationship between the coach and current student-athletes at all – if anything, it seems to cause a new disruption because coaches won’t be on campus.

“The important things to me are being able to be with my team during the week and recruit on weekends,” says George Mason head coach Jim Larranaga.  “My feeling is that we’ve got to spend times with our own teams more, but if they change the rule, coaches are going to be gone Monday through Friday and home on weekends.  That to me doesn’t make sense.”

“Our coaches will be away from our programs more, in terms of academic and player management issues,” says Old Dominion head coach Blaine Taylor.  “We will have less staff presence during the spring, which is an important time.”

UNC-Wilmington head coach Benny Moss really summed up a lot of the pluses of having live weekends in April: “I want to be there when (his current players) are in class, help them, and then on the weekend, I can go to an event and see a larger number of kids at one venue to develop a deeper list.  It helps my budget, for July we get a bigger list, plus it allows me to be on campus during the week, when my players need me to be there.”

In short, this legislation not only takes college coaches out of the equation with prospective student-athletes, but also with their current ones, too.  The benefit of that escapes me, and I’m sure many others as well.

If the NCAA thinks that eliminating the live weekends in April will lessen the impact of outside influences on the kids, they must have caught too much of the Washington air that seems to put people there out of touch with reality.  By taking college coaches out of the equation – as mentioned earlier, this legislation will not mean an end to events like the Houston Kingwood Classic, Real Deal in the Rock (formerly Real Deal on the Hill) or King James Shooting Stars Classic – this legislation only adds to the opportunity for unsavory influences to be in kids’ lives.  Those outside influences will continue to have easy access to the kids, while college coaches have less access.

What will the end result of that be?  Inevitably, more transfers – and the number of transfers has already been alarming in recent years – as well as more cases like the O.J. Mayo saga at USC.  This isn’t to say that having live weekends in April would prevent that from happening – indeed, April had live weekends for every year that Mayo was a prep star – it will only help set the stage for more of it.  As long as college coaches have less and less access, as will occur from this legislation, outside influences have more and more opportunity to influence kids.

“We have to evaluate players, and we’re getting such limited access to them now, that’s why you’re seeing so many transfers – we don’t know them, they don’t know us, and our access is being limited even more,” says Delaware head coach Monte Ross.

It’s also worth noting that the bum rap that travel team basketball gets is a bit undeserved.  There are certainly issues there – anyone who is around it at all understands that there are plenty of politics in play – but quite frankly, travel team basketball and the Amateur Athletic Union have nothing on the NCAA.  Unfortunately, the NCAA is too out of touch to realize that.

“Obviously, just like there is in college basketball and all different sports, and all different aspects of life, there’s going to be a few bad people, there’s going to be some bad situations with certain people, but for the most part, it’s a huge positive,” says Hofstra head coach Tom Pecora.  “There’s bad high school coaches out there, there’s bad college coaches out there.  There’s bad doctors and there’s bad mechanics.  That’s life.  You don’t let those people dictate the way you’re going to go about doing business day-to-day.”

Another end result will be a negative for the people who have no voice whatsoever in all of this – the kids.  They will continue to play, contrary to the NCAA’s belief, but now late bloomers won’t be discovered by college coaches in the spring after their senior year.  More kids will fall through the cracks because they aren’t properly evaluated, especially if they live in an isolated area where coaches can’t easily get to and they are the only Division I prospect within a large radius.  And now that April is out of the picture, July becomes much more important – and the kids are already taxed during that crazy month with seemingly non-stop action.

While scouting services and other members of the media may observe players in April events, no one can determine a player’s suitability for their program like a college coach.  It isn’t just about talent; talent is only one part of it.  Coaches generally recruit players for a certain style of play and a certain way they run their program; that’s how teams develop distinct reputations in terms of how they play in addition to a level of success.  That’s why, even though we in the media still have access and can spot talent, our evaluations of players aren’t as meaningful as those of coaches.

The NCAA makes a boatload of money off student athletes – $545 million per year just from its television contract with CBS Sports.  Given that this legislation means coaches will have to spend more time away from current student-athletes, and also hurts the prospective student-athletes, is it any wonder that some think “NCAA” stands for “Nobody Cares About Athletes”?

The NCAA loves to talk a good game about the student-athletes, especially concerning academics, but like anything else in life, it’s in the “doing” that the story is told.  Their doing is not positive, and it just had another negative – all in its latest attempt to try and regulate travel team basketball.