It takes a lot to get me to the keyboard these days, however no one can do it quicker than Myles Brand, President of the NCAA. All he has to do is open his mouth.
His latest are quotes relative to the NCAA’s seeming inability to protect itself from young high schoolers forced to play in limbo for a year masquerading as college “student athletes.”
Here’s what Brand had to say on Tuesday.
“The NCAA has no ability to influence, in any way, the age rule,” he said. “So any age limitation rules, the 19-year-olds who are so-called ‘one and done,’ are the result of bargaining negotiation between the NBA and the players’ association. The NCAA was not involved in any way in that bargaining in setting up the rule. Only the NBA management and the players association set those rules.”
While Brand is technically correct, the NCAA could do things to ensure that America’s colleges and universities didn’t become holding tanks for the likes of Kevin Love, OJ Mayo and the countless others who pretend to attend college for the purpose of aging a year.
If Brand and the NCAA presidents weren’t such hypocrites, they would look internally at NCAA baseball, for example, where players who are starting college are required to stay in there three years before they are drafted.
But they are hypocrites. Carmello Anthony was a “one and done,” but he won Syracuse a National Championship, and Jim Boeheim and those trustees will dine out on that National Title for years to come.
Kevin Durant, Greg Oden and Michael Beasley are good for business. It’s not secret. But so is Tyler Hansbrough, who decided to hang around for another year at North Carolina. There are plenty of players around willing to stay in college for four years. Why do you think schools like Gonzaga and Davidson can make runs. Their kids stay together.
The NCAA could put an end to “one and done” if they wanted. The truth is, they don’t want to. Brand can whine about the NBA age rule, but all the NCAA has done is create a situation that fuels fiascos like the one facing USC over OJ Mayo. Let’s see how often Tim Floyd and the USC trustees dine out on that one.
Even in the case of USC, Brand will fall back on his tired old, “it’s the University’s job to make sure situations like OJ Mayo are avoided.”
Despite his protestations to the contrary, Brand (and the NCAA) do have the ability to influence the NBA age rule, but it will never happen.
He remains the pip squeak bureaucrat he has always been.
NCAA Basketball is an absolute mess. Clean it up already.
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Whenever I see NCAA President Myles Brand, my blood boils. This two-bit bureaucrat continues to spout his assertion that NCAA athletes on a whole out-perform the general student body in the classroom. I’ve always stated that his statement is a lie, or if technically true, is the result of gender equity. Women carry the men.
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