Pac-12 unveils ideas after hoops findings

After five months of meetings, research, interviews and more, the Pac-12 Conference task force on Tuesday unveiled the ideas it hopes will help cleanse the embattled world of college basketball.

Exactly how ideas formed by the 12-person task force, which includes University of Colorado senior associate athletic director Ceal Barry, evolve into tangible change remains to be seen.

The report will be forwarded to the NCAA commission led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a group that, like the Pac-12 task force, was formed in the wake of four Division I assistant coaches getting arrested in the opening salvo of the stillunfolding FBI investigation into college basketball recruiting issues.

Two of those now-former assistant coaches worked in the Pac-12 — USC’s Tony Bland and Arizona’s Emanuel “Book” Richardson.

Among the more prominent suggestions compiled by the Pac-12 task force is the challenge to end the NBA’s one-and-done rule, which would allow elite high school prospects such as Arizona freshman Deandre Ayton (who is alleged to have been on the receiving end of a $100,000 payment from Wildcats coach Sean Miller, per an ESPN report) to jump immediately into their professional careers after high school.

The past two No. 1 overall picks in the NBA draft — former LSU star Ben Simmons and former Washington guard Markelle Fultz — had abbreviated college careers that, in retrospect, did little to elevate the profile of either their team or the collegiate game. Changing this NBA rule is one topic Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott spoke passionately about during his news conference at the league tournament last week in Las Vegas.

“We are certainly advocating for elite prospects to have a choice to go to the NBA or an enhance G League out of (high school) so they are not forced by the NBA’s rules to have to come to college and play in a collegiate system for a year,” Scott said.

While pressuring the NBA to end its one-anddone directive is one rule change that is gaining momentum, other areas of potential change outlined by the Pac-12 task force appear, at first glance, more difficult to implement.

For instance, the Pac-12 task force calls for the NCAA to organize its own regional showcases for high school athletes in July, which would include invitations to particular individuals instead of travel teams.

Among some of the other highlights of the Pac-12 task force’s recommendations:

• Allowing official visits to begin the fall of a high school player’s junior year, instead of after Jan. 1.

• Freeing up resources from the Student Assistance Fund to allow greater financial help for players’ families to travel to games.

• A general loosening of rules regarding contact with agents in order for families to more easily receive professional advice.

• Advocating for the formation of an independent entity to enforce NCAA regulations.