I was driving today and heard an interesting discussion on ESPN radio. Jay Bilas was leading the discussion, and there were a couple of current coaches. Leonard Hamilton was talking a lot, and he said some interesting things.
He said: He's not against NIL, but what we are dealing with now isn't NIL, but pay to play. He talked about boosters pooling upwards of 100 million dollars to pay for certain players, at certain schools. He also told a story about how coaches have no leverage or say so with the players, because agents and handlers have completely taken over.
He mentioned a well-known coach who is a good friend of his, who noticed two high-level players were interested in transferring to his school. He was never contacted by the players or their families, and he had no conversation with them at all. He said the players had an agent, and the agent negotiated with a booster affiliated with the school. Once an amount was agreed upon, the players announced they were transferring to his school on Twitter.
He also mentioned only 25 schools actually make money off of basketball, and how important a college degree is for 98% of the guys who play college hoops. He said education is completely off the table and not even discussed during recruiting with most elite athletes.
Bilas said the NCAA isn't going to do anything because they don't want to risk another lawsuit like the NIL lawsuit they are still dealing with. None of the panel was confident there will be a solution soon, but all agreed the current direction is destroying college basketball, and it's happening faster than anyone imagined... Bilas also said if every player who is currently in the portal got a scholarship, there would be about 200 still left because the scholarships will run out...
Very interesting discussion.
