Horrible Rule Proposed by NCAA Rules Committee

Tweet

Once again the NCAA has completely missed the point with a new proposed rule that would prohibit schools from offering scholarships until July 1 of a players Junior year. I am not sure what they are trying to accomplish with this rule, but it definitely will have HUGE unintended consequences.

I will nickname it the "Rich bet Richer" clause. Currently many second tier, third tier and mid-major schools are able to get Top 100 (or Top 200 for mid-majors) players by offering early. The "Prestige" schools rarely offer early because they want to watch players develop and make sure that they do not have any major recruiting misses.

However, to remain competitive the next level of schools such as Clemson, Illinois, Florida, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, etc, are willing to take the risk of offering very good players early. Often they will offer several good kids at the same position and tell them that the first commit gets the spot. This is good for basketball because it keeps parity amongst the clubs and is the reason the same 4-5 schools don't win the NC every year.

However, now we are going to hamstring those schools and they are only going to be able to offer in the summer before their Junior year. As a result, the Top Prestige schools will know exactly what they are getting with each kid. They will get to pick the best of the "known commodities" and all the other schools will have to slot in behind them. This just guarantees that the Top Schools will be guaranteed to stay there --- and is very bad for parity.

If the NCAA is looking for a way to ruin their glorious NCAA Tournament, this rule is a good start. It won't be much fun to watch if you know that only one of the Top 6 teams can win the tournament.

As you might imagine, I hate this rule and hope that they come to their senses before the pass it.

NOTE: Want to sound off to the committee about the proposed rule. Kevin Anderson, Athletic Director at Army is the Committee Chair, from the Army Athletics website here is his email kevin.b.anderson@usma.edu