Dick Weiss on College Basketball
PHILADELPHIA– In the absence of wise men Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams and Jay Wright who retired before the NIL and transfer portal threatened to turn the sport I love into a legalized armed race, St. John’s Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino as has stepped up and voiced his own solution to fixing a growing problem.
Pitino is calling for the major power basketball conferences to institute a salary cap and a new hierarchy to thrive.
Pitino tweeted major conferences should create a cap of between $1.5 and $2 million with all contracts delivered to the league and school offices.
He did not suggest major conferences should split away from other schools and the cap should be different for all leagues. r
“All other conference establish their own salary caps,” he said. “I would never exclude anyone from the NCAA tournament. Obviously, football is a different sport entirely and some of their talent makes more than NFL players.”
Pitino’s comments came in the wake of the National Labor Relations Board ruling that Dartmouth’s men’s basketball players, who had petitioned to be recognized by a local
union, a ruling that would allow NCAA athletes to unionize and negotiate salaries and work conditions, like practice and travel.
After the NLRB ruling, Pitino joked that his players had asked to work on their shooting, but he told them he didn’t want them to exceed their hours for the week. Ironically, before the NCAA 20-hour rule, Pitino practiced his 1987 Providence team three times a day and the friars benefited, advancing to the Final Four that year.
The NCAA has been adamant players are not employees and Dartmouth can appeal the NLRB ruling, which has groundbreaking impact.
After the NLRB ruling, Pitino joked that his players had asked to “work on their shooting,” but he told them he didn’t want them to exceed their hours for the week. The NCAA has been adamant that athletes are not employees. NCAA president Charlie Baker has proposed a “new tier” for college sports for the richest schools, which then pay their athletes an annual stipend through a trust fund. And the B1G and SEC, the two most influential conferences has created a joint committee to discuss the future of college athletics.
Pitino went a step farther later in the day when he said the NCAA should be taken out of the equation in the college landscape, which should include contracts for players.
Pitino called colleges to do away with letters of intent and make athletes sign a two-year binding contract, no different than pro athletes. “With that, the NIL collective
puts together their NIL contract based on the cap,” he said. “Obviously, a lot has to go into this. I believe the NCAA should be taken out of the equation the the
commissioners put into it as the NCAA loses more cases than the “defense lawyers on ‘Law and Order.”’
Hey, anything is better than what we have now.
Pitino has been on a roll lately.
Last Saturday, following a loss to UConn in the Garden, he said it’s time for the NCAA to step down when it comes to policing member schools. “It’s free agency,” he said. “And now I think what’s going to happen, they’re going to say everybody can transfer, and then if they don’t like it, they’re going to take them to court.
So I think the NCAA enforcement staff just should be disbanded. It’s a joke. Not because I dislike them. But they are of no value anymore. Tennessee now will take them to court. Virginia will take them to court.”
Attorneys general from those two states filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA last week that challenged its ban on use of NIL compensation in recruiting and in response.
to the association’s investigation of the University of Tennessee. A judge will hear their request Feb. 13 for a preliminary injunction that would put on hold NCAA rules banning.
recruiting inducements for pay for play.
“We need to stop all the hypocrisy of the NIL. We need to stop it because the NCAA can’t stop it. They are professional athletes. Get professionally paid. It’s not going away. You can’t try to get loopholes because they’re take you to court. …So, it’s a tough time for college basketball. And for us, you can’t really build programs and a culture because everybody leaves.
”I think so many football coaches are getting out, so many basketball coaches are getting out, because of the culture. It’s tough to build a program. You’ve got to really innovate, get creative and understand these rules or lack of rules right now.”
