NCAA recruiting

[Lakeview Brave]

Some of the posts in the other threads got me to thinking about the NCAA and recruiting.

What would you think if all college recruiting went to a free market system. Meaning schools could offer players whatever the wanted to get them to thier schools. I think the landscape of college basketball would reamin the same and the hypocracy in the NCAA would be gone. The top schools would have to decide how much it was worth to them to pay for the best players. Would they invest hundrends of thousands of dollars in a one year wonder? This is just a hypothetical but I really wonder how capitalism would work in basketball.

[tornado]

Oh my, are you serious?
Then why not just trickle that same thought down to the high school level and even junior high,
then the schools with the wealthiest and most influential parents and alumni will forever get all the top talent, and there will be no such thing as amateur sports any more. Unfortunately I think the amount of graft and deceit would escalate exponentially, as the feverish pace to try to buy/lure the top players would cause the players to do whatever (steroids, bribes, etc..) they can try to get away with, sorta like an OJ Mayo scenario on speed.

[Lakeview Brave]

But doesnt that stuff happen all the time already. Dont the top schools get the top players right now? Havent you posted hundrends maybe thousands of accounts of other schools cheating to get players. IMO the players at the top level deserve to get paid for the millions they bring the school in revenue. The mid size schools would still get the same players because those players would only be worthy of a schlorship. Wouldnt it be more fair for Michale Beasley to get 2 million dollars than his former AAU coach?

[tornado]

But Beasley WILL get $2 million, just not from Kansas State. If he wants the opportunity to go to college and get an education, he can either pay or accept the scholarship with the rules that go with it.
Although it is appearing more and more like K-State did a few suspicious things to get him...so there's your proof that the best schools and the ones most well funded do NOT always get the best talent. It is often the ones who have the most ingenious way of breaking or bending the rules (Kelvin Sampson figured this out), and I am convinced if we allow the really HUGE NBA-level $$ to be freely thrown about in college, the level of crookedness will be astounding.

If we just let everyone make up their own set of rules, we'd have chaos.

[SFP]

I say add a Salary cap, make the cap reasonable and you want to go over it ala Yankees you pay a hefty tax. This way if a 5 star player wants the money he will have to go to a school that can pay the tax or someone under the cap who wants you bad enough. Any payment by alumni or outside influences, summer jobs is absolutley prohibative and if found out the institution is given a 2 year death penalty. The player will have to sign a contract that states he will abide by the rules if found guilty he will have to pay the school back all the money given to him plus 1/2 of any pro contract. Case solved.
Schools will not want to cheat, athaletes will not want to cheat and and recruiting will be transparent.

The only area that will need to be ironed out are jobs to the players family or HS/AAU coach.

[MacabreMob]

Let's just have schools pay players to play. Let's not have the "smoke" of them being student athletes.

Student athletes will actually compete on a different level.

Let the top paying schools/alumni showcase their prized players in a seperate league. They don't go to school. They are employed by the school - just like administrators, faculty, staff, janitors, etc. They are there only to play basketball (football). It becomes a sub-league to the pros. They are the big money draw. Who cares if they can complete a full sentence or perform basic algebra. They can sky to the moon and drain 3's from nearly 1/2 court.

Let schools also have scholarship (amateur) athletes. They are unpaid. They are 2nd fiddle - but they are purely student athletes.

So a BCS school like Kentucky can have it's Kentucky All-Stars that play in one league with all the other school All-Stars. But Kentucky would also have a team of amateur student athletes competing in the SEC in the NCAA Div 1. Then envision a "pro" Kentucky player also (smart enough to be) going to school there... and he is struggling on the "pro" level... gets sent down for a semester, month, etc for the amateur level before getting his game back together and called back up to the "pros". Or if gets hurt, goes on the DL, and makes a couple starts for the college team before going back up to the pros.

But think of what the NBA likes/gets from this. They don't have to pay the players coming out of HS (err, ok 1 yr outta college) and gambling on his ability to compete. They can watch a guy dominate the "pro" college leagues... purchase his contract and bring him up into the NBA.... struggles, send him back down.

The opportunities are endless.

I'm all for it.

[Beninator]

This thread is kind of messed up..imo

But I'll add a couple of things here...

How about the NBA finally shelling out some money and establishing a minor league system similar to major league baseball? This will never happen as the NBA already has a free minor league system aleady set up courtesy of the NCAA. If a HS grad truly has potential, then the kid can prove himself in front of coaches hired by the NBA and get paid to do so.

Then have the NCAA mandate that all sports be for the scholar-athlete.

Again none of this will ever happen as the mid major schools would suddenly become contenders overnight.

[That Guy]

How about the NBA finally shelling out some money and establishing a minor league system similar to major league baseball?

Isn't that what they're trying to do with the D-League?

[Lakeview Brave]

I'm not directing this at anyone. BUT WHAT? I think the way things are, are fine. If some of the proposals came true I'd have about as much interest in Bradley Basketball as I do the pros, unless the Bulls, Bears, WS, or Cubs were involved. We could never compete, we don't get any State money. Just look at all the money being lost by the Indiana tax payers this year, we can't compete with that.

First the thread is a hypothetical becasuse I think its better than talking about jay walking at ISU.

Now why woulndt Bradley be able to compete in a free market system? Does Duke survive on state money? Schlorships would still be all that was needed for the vasy majority of players, thier would still be limits on the amounts of players a team could have. Perhaps a salary cap with a luxury tax would work as someone else suggested. Would Memphis have paid the maximum for Derrick Rose? Maybe but what if it was 500 thousand and that cap hit lasted 3 years? At least collge basketball recruiting would be transparent.

[Beninator]

Isn't that what they're trying to do with the D-League?

True, but at this time, I dont think you can compare the D-League to the minor league baseball leagues.