For my money, March Madness is the best sporting event there is.
The first four days in particular are unlike anything else in the sports world. The sheer number of high-quality games to lose yourself in is a unique experience, even if the school you support isn’t involved. If anything, March Madness has become more engaging with the 24/7 news cycle and the ability to be a part of the discourse on social media.
The joy of watching postseason college basketball will serve as a welcome distraction from the crumbling state of the NCAA.
The recent allegations made against Arizona head coach Sean Miller for paying vast sums of money to secure the commitment of top recruits are the latest in a long line of black marks on the resume of the NCAA.
Numerous powerful names in the basketball world have declared outright that the NCAA is corrupt, and it’s easy to see why.
It’s no secret that the highest level of college athletics is heavily influenced by agents, shoe companies, and the occasional morally dubious head coach (i.e. Rick Pitino).
Perhaps the biggest sign of the NCAA’s lack of credibility in the wake of the Miller scandal is the fact that, despite there apparently being ample evidence against him, he was still allowed to coach the Wildcats in their regular season finale on Saturday. When such a damning revelation results in almost no immediate consequences for those involved, something is seriously wrong.
So what’s to be done about the state of college basketball?
The simplest thing to do would be to address two of the most controversial topics surrounding the sport: the one-and-done rule, and the issue of compensation.
The one-and-done rule is less a matter of legality than it is of philosophy.
For several years, the NBA has considered revising its policy on having incoming players spend at least one year at school.
There are plenty of people who support the one-and-done rule. For one thing, it allows for a larger talent pool at the game’s highest level, as well as creating more hype and buzz for the sport than there would be otherwise. Players like Trae Young (Oklahoma), DeAndre Ayton (Arizona), and Marvin Bagley III (Duke) have provided enormous amounts of excitement in what figures to be their only seasons at the college level.
Of course, having a player with that kind of talent doesn’t guarantee team success. Look no further than former first overall picks Ben Simmons (LSU) and Markelle Fultz (Washington), both of whom’s teams failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament in their lone seasons.
If a player is good enough to go directly to the NBA from high school, it seems reasonable to let them do so instead of being forced to spend a year doing something they don’t want to do. While changing the one-and-done rule would obviously deprive college basketball of some great players, realistically there would only be a handful of young men who make the jump on an annual basis. The overall talent in the game would remain reasonably the same.
The bigger issue in my mind — and the one that lies at the root of so many of these scandals — is the issue of player compensation.
Despite widespread public support for the idea of paying D-I athletes, NCAA head Mark Emmert and his supporters have frequently balked at the idea for reasons unknown.
There would be drawbacks to compensation. For one, who gets how much? It wouldn’t make much sense for, say, the starting quarterback at Alabama to make the same as a bench player on the St. Bonaventure basketball team. There would be endless debates as to how much each athlete in each sport at each school is owed.
Second, there wouldn’t be much incentive for these “student-athletes” to go to class, especially for the ones who aren’t going to be there for four years.
And third, getting paid to play would take away some of the incentive to compete for certain players (though this would constitute a small percentage of athletes).
But with all that being said, the positives far outweigh the negatives.
The ability for these athletes — many of whom come from lower-income households — to help support their families would be indescribably beneficial.
Along those same lines, a lot of athletes would likely stay in school longer if they were able to bring in a consistent, livable salary.
On a larger scale, paying athletes and creating an aura of transparency would wipe clean much of the unnecessary corruption that is dragging college athletics down. Boosters and runners wouldn’t feel the need to entice young athletes with payouts if they were getting paid in the first place.
But most of all, college athletes deserve a slice of all the money being made on behalf of the NCAA. It’s frankly incredible that those who are most responsible for creating interest in a multi-billion dollar industry don’t see any of the profits. Can you imagine the actors and actresses of a major Hollywood movie not receiving anything for their contributions?
With both the one-and-done rule and compensation, it comes back to the idea of amateurism. It’s an outdated concept that is holding college athletics back. The NCAA ought to do away with the current state of amateurism and treat their student-athletes like the employees they actually are.
Not only would this help create transparency and lessen corruption, but the absence of amateurism would remove any reason to break amateur rules in the first place.
It may be wishful thinking to believe that an organization as set in its ways as the NCAA would be open to such drastic changes. But embracing change is the only way to make the NCAA a semi-respectable organization.
