Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean that really got out of hand fast.
The transfer portal and NIL make a potent news mix, while Mark Emmert's pending departure and a potential California law will only make things tougher on the NCAA
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COLLEGE BASKETBALL’S PORTAL
The price of success
The quiet parts are now said out loud in the college hoops transfer portal.
The portal closes on Sunday1, but expect these types of stories to linger far beyond that because this isn’t tied to schools. This is a public (clumsy?) appeal to billionaire booster John Ruiz, who tweeted last week about Kansas State guard Nigel Pack coming to South Beach after securing a two-year NIL deal for $800,000 and a car.
Not that Ruiz appears to have much interest in a new deal. He told ESPN: “Isaiah is under contract. He has been treated by LifeWallet exceptionally well. If that is what he decides, I wish him well, however, I DO NOT renegotiate! Surprises me because there are so many players that would love to play for the U!”
Ruiz isn’t the only Miami booster out there. As Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald notes, Wong’s current deal is non-exclusive, meaning other boosters could throw in some cash and potentially keep Wong, a 6-3 sophomore who was the Canes’ second-leading scorer (15.3 ppg) last season and had a game-high 21 in their NCAA Tournament win over Auburn. Miami made a surprise run to the Elite Eight this season, but if Wong stays, does this create friction between he and Pack? Or others who feel undervalued?
Because there was plenty of portal news beyond Miami:
Chattanooga guard Malachi Smith keyed the Mocs’ NCAA Tourney run. His entrance into the portal marks perhaps the nest two-way player available; he averaged 19 points, 6 boards and 3 assists last year and is a nasty defender when motivated.
Missouri State’s Isiaih Mosley is entering the portal and testing the NBA Draft waters. The two-time MVC All-Conference player was a 50/40/90 guy who averaged 20 points a game last season. He could very well stay in the NBA Draft.
Kentucky landed Illinois State wing Antonio Reeves, who averaged 20 points a game last season. Big Blue Nation is just a tad pumped.
De’Vion Harmon is headed back to his home state. He’ll suit up for Texas Tech next season after averaging double-digit points for Oregon the last two seasons.
How the Wong’s future at Miami shakes out is anyone’s guess. I don’t know what the market is for Wong’s skills. The larger conversation now is how quickly NIL deals went from a sponsorship/branding opportunity for NCAA athletes to straight up paying athletes to play. That was always part of NIL, but this pushed it front and center where it will stay until the NCAA figures out how to create structure amid the new normal.
On that note …
CHANGE ATOP THE NCAA
Mark Emmert’s out — so who leads the NCAA next?
The NCAA announced it’ll mutually part ways with Mark Emmert (he’ll continue to serve as President until a new one is selected, or until June 30, 2023) prompting a flood of responses. But they mostly said the same thing: Emmert was a poor president.2
He failed to prepare the NCAA for the reality of Name, Image and Likeness3, ensuring the current chaos, bungled gender equity, fumbled the potential for lucrative TV revenue, and essentially seemed to wish it was 1990, rather than prepare the organization and its member schools for today’s sports reality. But don’t just take my word for it.
let’s just agree to agree that Emmert was not good at being the NCAA president, that he turned a puppet position into a vainglorious attempt to blow smoke up his own posterior rather than consider the greater good; that he never understood that his job was to represent the masses and not himself; and that given the rare opportunity to serve as the talking head he usually bungled that, too.
At times, Emmert’s 12-year tenure felt like the 11-year period when the old World Wrestling Federation held out Canadian promoter Jack Tunney as the organization’s “president.” On TV, Tunney looked very official, and he made statements on all the major (fictional) events that affected the organization. Nine-year-old me didn’t understand that Vince McMahon was really in charge, so I yelled at the screen if Tunney handed down a decision that negatively affected Hulk Hogan or the Junkyard Dog or any of my other favorite wrestlers. Especially in the later years of his tenure, Emmert felt like that kind of figurehead. The CEOs at Georgetown or Wisconsin or Georgia or Oregon State were making — or not making — the decisions. Emmert felt as if he was just there for all of us to yell at.
If there is a less respected current CEO of any organization, I don’t know who it is. The NCAA’s outdated policies led to a public tipping point that was inevitable no matter who was president, but boy howdy did Emmert play the role of inept figurehead like it was a Hollywood script.
There’s also this, which is fair:
OK. Now what?
Who wants a job leading an organization that will almost certainly have significant changes coming in the next few years?
Should the NCAA focus on a more politically adept leader who can navigate the challenges faced by an organization that relies on various governmental support? Or someone who’s focused on maximizing the true value of its sports and not just content to ride the college basketball wave? Maybe a person who wants to focus on just running events? Or someone who can ensure college football doesn’t eventually become its own entity? Someone who just blows it all up?
Because changes are coming.
Several athletic administrators and college sports insiders discussed the Transfer Committee’s concepts under the condition of anonymity. They include (1) eliminating scholarship caps on sports that offer only partial scholarships; (2) abolishing the limitation on the number of coaches per team; (3) expanding direct payments from schools to athletes; (4) reconfiguring the recruiting calendar; and (5) implementing closed periods in the NCAA transfer portal. At least the first three items will be left in the decision-making hands of individual conferences, if the concepts are approved.
There are plenty of potential people for the job (see lists here and here), but don’t expect anything before recommendations land this summer from the D-I, D-II, and D-III Transformation Committees. They’ll (hopefully) be setting the stage for how each division should move forward amid all those changes.
Look, it won’t be an easy job. Running the NCAA, an organization with thousands of schools that have different goals and business models, means trying to appease leaders around the country who are just as powerful and often more influential, particularly when it comes to running their schools.
Amy Perko, CEO of the Knight Commission, stressed that the group believes it’s “critical” for the Division I Board to include independent directors who aren’t employed by the universities because it has been “too insular in its thinking.”
“If the composition of the board is not changed, it may not matter who the next leader is,” Perko said. “All of those people do have self conflicts of interest. They’re employed by the universities and conferences that benefit from the current system and the current ways of doing things.”
THE COLLEGE ATHLETE RACE AND GENDER EQUITY ACT
California bill to NIL: Hold my beer
Pac-12, Mountain West schools are watching SB-1401, a bill in the California legislature that could upend college sports in those two leagues. It passed the Judiciary committee and is now in Appropriations. It’s likely to see some resistance there and again if it hits the Assembly floor.
Why? From Jon Wilner of the Bay Area News Group:
If SB-1401 becomes law, which seemingly could happen as soon as 2023, the requirements could place the California schools in the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences at a significant financial disadvantage, create massive Title IX complications and threaten the long-term viability of Olympic sports, from softball to swimming to tennis.
I won’t excerpt the entire article because A) Wilner explains in great detail what it all means, and provides tangible examples of potential impact and B) It’s a free article to read.
It’ll be fascinating to watch reaction to this bill and how far it goes in the legislative process. California is famously ahead of the curve when it comes to progressive laws (recycling, labor, etc). Whether this turns out to be the final version or the first crack at a future law remains to be seen.
The Fast Break
Links to read with your NFL Draft analysis
Who are the Keegan Murrays and Ochai Agbajis next season? 10 players who could drastically improve their NBA Draft stock.
North Carolina didn’t win the NCAA Tournament, but April’s been pretty good for the Heels.
Houston, Cincinnati and UCF will join the Big 12 for the 2023-24 academic year (along with BYU), meaning the Big 12 will have 14 teams for two seasons — until Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC in fall 2025.
This has been in the works for a while, but Mount St. Mary’s is set to join the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. That’s 11 MAAC teams; Monmouth left for the CAA earlier this year.
Kansas’ title prompted a barnstorming tour around the state, which has been generating some real $$$ for the players. Expect this to be the norm for future champions.
Towson snagged the D-II Player of the Year, Sekou Sylla, per Jeff Goodman. The 6-5 guard averaged 22 points a game.
Why the duck is autocorrect so bad? We’ll, your gonna want to listen to this.
For any player who wants to play in 2022-23 without trying to obtain a waiver. We’ll almost certainly see some portal entrants after Sunday.
To be fair, he did just get a contract extension last year. Plenty of cluelessness going around.
The Supreme Court dunked on the NCAA’s amateurism rules 9-0. Talk about denial.
Forde isn’t one to rip the NCAA, either.