With less than two weeks to go until the college basketball season starts, there’s still uncertainty around eligibility amid multiple lawsuits. St. John’s coach Rick Pitino has questions, but mostly about how the NCAA handled the rule changes and the legal challenges.
Pitino told Jon Rothstein he sees comments from other coaches who aren’t happy with the NCAA, given the state of the landscape. However, his counter is that the schools are part of the association, though he acknowledged “mistakes” with regard to eligibility.
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To Pitino, the NCAA had an opportunity to draw a line – particularly when it comes to professional athletes – and didn’t. As a result, he wondered why the governing body continues to fight the lawsuits while also lobbying for the Protect College Sports Act in Congress.
“A lot of coaches have been upset at the NCAA and then knocking the NCAA,” Pitino said on CBS Sports’ Inside College Basketball Now. “Look, what you have to understand is we are the NCAA. We’re part of this corporation. The NCAA just made some mistakes because they’re caught with all this at the last second. Now, if the NCAA said on Nov. 15, ‘We’re going to allow for this class to play a fifth year,’ there would be none of this.
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“If the NCAA said, ‘Anybody who plays any form of professional basketball over in Europe or overseas in Australia cannot play collegiate basketball,’ we’d have none of this. But they didn’t say that. I really don’t understand why they’re fighting all this. They should just say, ‘We’re allowing it next year.'”
Rick Pitino: ‘I’m not a believer in going to Congress’
While the NCAA fights in court, the Protect College Sports Act is also heading to the House of Representatives. The bipartisan college sports bill advanced out of the Senate last month, but the House isn’t due to return until after the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Pitino, though, argued Congress might not be the answer for college sports. He questioned the decision to lobby for federal legislation. Instead, he said conference leaders should get together and chart a path forward with concrete rules while also being ready for lawsuits.
“I’m not a believer in going to Congress because I think you’re wasting your time. … You’re relying on Congress to cure your problems,” Pitino said. “It would be like me going to to the state Senator of New York and say, ‘Could you help my team out with challenge shots? Can you help them out with turnovers?’ We’ve got to take care of our own business. What has to happen is the president needs to get with every commissioner, the five big commissioners, and say we’re all in this together. We’re going to form the rules. … We leave here today, this is what we’re doing. You can transfer one time. This is what we’re doing. They want to take the court, we’ll fight it. But we are locked in. If they want to fight it, you agree with the NCAA.
“That’s what they need to do because you know what’s going to happen? We’re going to have Congress come in, the Democrats are going to kick the Republicans’ ass in midterms and we’re going to have all Democrats – and by the way, Democrats want to put restrictions on what we make as coaches. We’re suddenly going to change our feelings.”