Providence College’s head men’s basketball coach, Kim English, issued a forceful statement on X last week, just 24 hours before the May 1st deadline of midnight that evening. Any player who wanted to enter the Portal may do so between March 18th and midnight on May 1st.
To put the coach’s statement into context, it came amid strong reports that PC’s Bryce Hopkins was considering entering the Portal at that late hour. Coach English clearly understood far more about the facts than he was willing to disclose.
Dan Hurley, UConn’s head coach, was recently quoted as saying he was aware of widespread tampering.
At the very least, these two coaches were willing to put their names next to their views, giving voice to many other coaches who are frustrated with the fundamental shift in how college athletics runs today.
To explain, the average college basketball fan may be asking himself, “What tampering?” “I thought it was open season for players looking to transfer.” Yes, that is mostly true, but the only form of regulation currently in place is that a player must officially declare into the Portal by following the procedures outlined and filling out the proper paperwork, which the school must forward to the NCAA once the player submits it to his current institution. If the player is not officially enrolled in the Portal, other coaches, agents, and intermediaries are not permitted to contact them – those contacts would constitute tampering. That is what English was objecting to.
Minutes after English Tweeted about tampering, former PC great and now radio man Joe Hassett pointed out the lawlessness of the present system.
“Imagine, tampering in the NBA lose draft picks and fined 6 figures. College basketball no problem. There needs to be some serious rules put into place but no one in the NCAA has the balls to do it!!!
When I got in touch with old friend Mike Tranghese to get his input on the current state of affairs, he directed me to a recent May 2nd article by John Fanta, who is a college basketball broadcaster and reporter for Fox Sports – the network which carries the majority of Big East games.
In this report, Fanta provides many anonymous quotes from various major conference head coaches. One of the more succinct quotes was from another Big East coach, “We are in a system of corruption. The 3rd party controls college basketball. Young people are made to believe they are entitled to money. On the surface, that is fine. However, there are no guardrails, expectations, or accountability attached. It’s a dangerous precedent to set for their respective futures and the future of college basketball.”
Many of the other quotes consist of the same themes. Most of the coaches do not begrudge the players being in a situation to make money. The word “guardrails” and the lack thereof is the most consistent idea brought up by all coaches involved. It’s mostly that they are now operating in a system without any defined limits on how to function.
One immediate reform that all coaches are just about unanimous on is the timing of the opening of the Portal. Right now, it opens the day after selection Sunday. At first blush, it seems unreasonable that teams such as Memphis, Pitt, St John’s, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Ole Miss rejected invitations to play in the NIT. Wouldn’t seniors on those teams want to continue to play out what’s left of their college careers? And shouldn’t those 68 teams and coaches who were chosen to play in the Big Dance be afforded the luxury of preparing for the tournament without any distractions?
One Big East assistant coach (not with PC) explained how the timing of the Portal opening on that day throws everything into chaos. That day marks the onset of an exhaustive process of evaluating film, researching prospective players in terms not only ability but also of their personalities, character etc. Who would best fit our style of play? To not get the earliest jump possible on the Portal would be negligent of their responsibilities to their respective programs.
He told me how many of these young men are pulled in many directions by family, agents, and whoever considers themselves stakeholders in their financial futures. What’s the real price? How do you fit that number into your current roster? How do you convey that number to your collective providing the money? This experienced coach brought up the idea at what point you have to consider donor fatigue – that a lot of the older people with that kind of money are not totally down with the players making a lot of money, that they are more comfortable contributing to a field of study or a building with their name on it. How will all of this unrestricted player movement affect graduation rates.
Speaking to another old friend, Jim Calhoun (I was his assistant for one year when Reggie Lewis was a freshman at Northeastern), I asked his general take on the current state of the college game. He told me of a chance meeting with Dean Smith while sitting on a plane at about the time Jim had just gotten the UConn job. Although respecting the iconic coach’s privacy, Jim, as a young coach, wasn’t going to bypass the opportunity to pick this legendary figure’s brain. Jim bided his time and eventually just asked Smith what was his basic approach to putting together a winning team. He told me Dean Smith said he constantly tries to build a program, not a team. How he puts his players through an initiation where he can aid in their development as a person and a player. The obvious implication that Jim was trying to convey was how challenging that approach would be in today’s environment of pay-to-play and unbridled free agency.
This whole party started to a degree back in 2009 when Ed O’Bannon filed his lawsuit against the NCAA on the basis that the organization infringed on his ability to benefit from monetizing his name, image, and likeness after he accidentally saw himself appear in a video game while at a friend’s house. The NCAA has been fighting every step of the way as they continue to lose at every turn in Federal court. By stubbornly clinging to an outmoded anachronistic mythology of 19th-century amateurism (the student-athlete) they surrendered the opportunity to practically head off this mayhem by ignoring the obviously legal handwriting on the wall.
Now, having been dumped into a morass equivalent to the atmosphere of the bar scene in Star Wars, everyone involved will have to find a way out that’s somehow fair to everyone involved. It won’t be easy. Legal experts tell us that the only reason, for instance, that professional leagues like the NBA can establish salary caps and other rules governing free agency is that they are negotiated through an association entered into willingly by the players – otherwise said agreements would violate antitrust laws. That is the main reason the NCAA is being stymied from unilaterally imposing any regulations on college athletes – no such association currently exists. The NCAA has still been seeking an exemption from antitrust law, which most lawyers in this field say is not going to happen.
Obviously, something will have to be worked out. Some sensible guardrails will eventually have to be established to allow this enterprise to continue in an orderly fashion. It’s too bad my old college coach, Dave Gavitt, wasn’t able to stick around for a while longer to help guide us through this crisis.
His natural creativity and leadership would have been greatly appreciated if he had somehow utilized his skill to bring people together for an outcome that would benefit everyone – players, coaches, academia, and fans.
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