The NCAA is ruining college basketball

The NBA is a dying league. The ratings are down, baseball is drawing more, the World Series gets more viewers than the Finals, and college basketball now has consistently better ratings. The product is boring. It’s a three point contest (and not a fun one), where a guy is going viral for taking seven steps before taking a jumper over the Christmas break. There’s a goofy “cup” competition now that has no history and none of the appeal of the cup competitions that proper football leagues in England and the continent have. In short: the NBA sucks.

Why am I starting this article like this? Well, largely because the NBA is threatening to take over NCAA basketball in the most nefarious way possible, by having their players play in college.

This started when the NCAA started throwing a fit about having to pay players. Insisting that meant that they functionally had no choice but to take players on, they opened up the floodgates for transfers and former Euro players to move on to college campuses. You don’t have to look far to find someone who has been paid to play the game in the past playing in the NCAA. Fedor Zugic is probably the name that most Xavier fans are familiar with. He played professionally in Germany from 2021-24 before coming to Creighton and being just sort of ok. This season Illinois added a player who had already played in Europe this calendar year.

Now, the NCAA is refusing to take even basic steps to prevent literally anyone from playing in college ball. Why? Because they are pissy that they have to share the money they had been raking in off the back of unpaid labor for decades. There is no reason that players shouldn’t get paid or make a bit of NIL. In response, the NCAA has abdicated all responsibility. The best analogy is probably the parent who can’t get the kids to do what they want and so finally just yells “do whatever you want” and throws in the towel until their partner returns home to reinstate order. Want ice cream and cookies for lunch? Fine, just wait until your dad gets home.

Baylor has added an NBA draft pick who will be immediately eligible to play. James Nnaji was drafted with the 31st pick of the NBA draft in 2023 and has played professionally in Europe for four seasons already. Nnaji has been traded twice already and has made money as an adult playing basketball. He’s not a guy who was a junior in Europe and is now playing in college, he’s a grown man who is dropping back into college because he wants the money and because Scott Drew doesn’t care who plays for him. It is a complete violation of what the NCAA stands for and a decade ago would have led to them ruling him immediately ineligible.

Why haven’t they? Again, because they are throwing a fit. Here is a statement that they gave to Jeff Goodman, please read it in the most “he’s being mean to me” whine you can possibly imagine, because I promise that’s the way it is delivered.

Schools are recruiting and seeking eligibility for more individuals with more international, semi-pro and professional experience than ever before and while the NCAA members have updated many rules following the House injunction, more rules must likely be updated to reflect the choices member schools are making. At the same time, NCAA eligibility rules have been invalidated by judges across the country wrecking havoc on the system and leading to fewer opportunities for high school students, which is why the Association is asking Congress to intervene in these challenges.

This makes it sound like this was all some big surprise to the NCAA. It wasn’t. Everyone knew NIL was coming two years before it finally happened. But if you want to make people regret messing with you, you just refuse to accept a new reality or plan for it in any way. They could have had rules instituted or adjust the system so there wasn’t havoc wrought. As they mention just a sentence before, the NCAA can set rules and adjust. They just didn’t because they were mad. This isn’t the fault of players, coaches, fans, or boosters. It is 100% an NCAA institutional problem and refusal to accept that things change. This is the same association that took forever to adjust to integration. While the impact is not the same, the energy is. When you have to resort to getting wanks like Ted Cruz to chime in for you, you’ve lost the plot.

This week an even more absurd report came out. Joe Tipton, a once reasonably reliable source, reported that multiple teams were trying to bring in Trentyn Flowers, a two way player with the Chicago Bulls. Flowers has appeared in eight NBA games and scored nine points on nine shots in a game an entire year ago for the Clippers. He’s an NBA player. Flowers was highly sought out of high school, but went pro right away.

While many schools distanced themselves from Tipton’s report and ON3 sports was forced to clarify correcting that they could not name a specific school, the fact remains that an NBA player has been drawing attention from NCAA schools. As of right now, ON3 still stands by that reporting. Tipton deleted the initial tweet, but still posted an update that is locked behind a paywall. Is this terrible reporting? Of course. Is it the result of the NCAAs incompetence and petulance? Of course.

The simple fact remains that schools will do whatever they can to win. The NBA is about money, college basketball is about winning. You can argue the morals of it (I personally find what Drew did pretty pathetic), but it remains legal at the moment because the NCAA simply refuses to take any action in any way. “Wait until Daddy Congress gets home. Then you’ll obey.” Of course, the makeup of Congress is such that they will likely side with the massive, bloated corporation over the people they should be protecting, but that’s another discussion for another website.

College basketball remains the most pure of the major college sports. It is a better product than the NBA, something reflected by attendance and ratings numbers. The NCAA, though, has stopped being able to funnel money solely to the rich and connected, and they are throwing a fit about that. As society tries to address inequalities, the standing powers are doing what they always have, pitching a massive hissy. In doing so, they may just ruin it for everyone.