Report urges major basketball changes

INDIANAPOLIS — The Commission on College Basketball has sharply directed the NCAA to take control of the sport, calling for sweeping reforms to separate pro and college tracks, permit players to return to school after going undrafted by the NBA and ban cheating coaches for life.

The independent commission, led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, released a detailed 60-page report Wednesday, seven months after the group was formed by the NCAA in response to a federal corruption investigation that rocked college basketball. Ten people, including some assistant coaches, have been charged in a bribery and kickback scheme, and high-profile programs such as Arizona, Louisville and Kansas have been tied to possible NCAA violations.

“The members of this commission come from a wide variety of backgrounds

but the one thing that they share in common is that they believe the college basketball enterprise is worth saving,” Rice told the AP on Tuesday night, before addressing NCAA leaders Wednesday morning.

The commission offered harsh assessments of toothless NCAA enforcement, as well as the shady summer basketball circuit that includes AAU leagues and brings together agents, apparel companies and coaches looking to profit on teenage prodigies.

Rice presented the commission’s report to the NCAA’s Board of Governors and Division I Board of Directors at the association’s headquarters Wednesday.”

Now it’s up to various subcommittees, working groups and college administrators to dig into a mountain of work over the next three months as the NCAA attempts to change NBA Draft rules, create a new enforcement body, toughen penalties for rules violations, revamp summer recruiting and certify agents.

“It’s going to be a challenge to say the least,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said. “This is a pace of decision making that the association’s really never done on this kind of scale before.”

Emmert said he wants reforms in place by August.

The 12-member commission included college administrators and former coaches and players, and was tasked with finding ways to reform five areas: NBA Draft rules, including the league’s age limit that has led to so-called one-and-done players; the relationship between players and agents; non-scholastic basketball like AAU; involvement of apparel companies; and NCAA enforcement.

The commission called for the NBA and its players association to change rules requiring players to be at least 19 years old and a year removed from graduating high school to be draft eligible. The one-and-done rule was

implemented in 2006,.

The NBA and players union released a statement supportive of the commission’s recommendations on enforcement and sharing concerns about youth basketball. On draft rules, however, there was no commitment.

“One-and-done has to go, one way or another,” Rice told the AP.

The commission recommended harsher penalties for rule-breakers and that the NCAA outsource the investigation and adjudication of the most serious infractions cases. Level I violations would be punishable with up to a five-year postseason ban and the forfeiture of all postseason revenue for the time of the ban.

Instead of show cause orders, which are meant to limit a coach’s ability to work in college sports after breaking NCAA rules, the report called for lifetime bans.

The commission proposed the NCAA create a program for certifying agents, and make them accessible to players from high school through their college careers.

The NCAA, with support from the NBA and USA Basketball, should run its own recruiting events for prospects during the summer, the commission said, and take a more serious approach to certifying events it does not control.

The NCAA should require greater transparency of the finances of what it called non-scholastic basketball events and ban its coaches from attending those that do not comply with more stringent vetting, the report said. Such a ban could wipe out AAU events that have flourished in showcasing future talent.

The commission also called for greater financial transparency from shoe and apparel companies such as Nike, Under Armour and Adidas.

These companies have extensive financial relationships with colleges and coaches worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and Adidas had two former executives charged by federal prosecutors in New York in the corruption case.