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sagegrouse
11-10-2017, 10:52 PM
The Bilas ESPN article (http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/21250068/the-bilas-opus-gives-everything-need-know-college-basketball) on how to fix college hoops is worth reading. It was cited previously, and the poster was turned off by Bilas's fake pomposity for the first 200-300 words.

There is a lot of meat in the article after that beginning. What impressed me:


For economic purposes, NCAA hoops is the NCAA -- it is the source of virtually all its funding and is a multi-billion dollar industry on its own. (Football, i believe everyone recognizes, has gone its own way and doesn't contribute to NCAA coffers.)
Hire a commissioner with powers to maneuver the sport in these complex times (OAD, agents, shoe companies, etc.).
Reduce the number of Division I schools from the astronomical number of 351 to about 120, which is manageable and which will be healthier economically. Allow the schools left out to still qualify for March Madness.
Fire Mark Emmert. The NCAA is a mess, and he must take responsibility. I would agree. The NBA, college football and major league baseball are running smoothly these days, which is a credit to their leadership. I would lump NCAA hoops with the NFL as popular sports that are being mismanaged. Anyone else notice that the NBA's Adam Silver is doing a three hundred percent better job than the NFL's Roger Goodell? I rarely agree with Jerry Jones, but Goodell should also go.
Use an outside arbiter to judge NCAA violations (like American Arbitration Association). Let the NCAA have an aggressive enforcement staff that investigates and files charges.

Bilas also has strong opinions about "amateurism" and "eligibility." His points are interesting, but I am not there yet.

By the way, Bilas is the obvious candidate to be Commissioner of NCAA Basketball.

Native
11-11-2017, 11:26 AM
By the way, Bilas is the obvious candidate to be Commissioner of NCAA Basketball.

Tin foil hat time: I don't think it's a coincidence that Bilas has this suggestion when K is in the twilight of his career.

davekay1971
11-11-2017, 11:27 AM
The Bilas ESPN article (http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/21250068/the-bilas-opus-gives-everything-need-know-college-basketball) on how to fix college hoops is worth reading. It was cited previously, and the poster was turned off by Bilas's fake pomposity for the first 200-300 words.

There is a lot of meat in the article after that beginning. What impressed me:


For economic purposes, NCAA hoops is the NCAA -- it is the source of virtually all its funding and is a multi-billion dollar industry on its own. (Football, i believe everyone recognizes, has gone its own way and doesn't contribute to NCAA coffers.)
Hire a commissioner with powers to maneuver the sport in these complex times (OAD, agents, shoe companies, etc.).
Reduce the number of Division I schools from the astronomical number of 351 to about 120, which is manageable and which will be healthier economically. Allow the schools left out to still qualify for March Madness.
Fire Mark Emmert. The NCAA is a mess, and he must take responsibility. I would agree. The NBA, college football and major league baseball are running smoothly these days, which is a credit to their leadership. I would lump NCAA hoops with the NFL as popular sports that are being mismanaged. Anyone else notice that the NBA's Adam Silver is doing a three hundred percent better job than the NFL's Roger Goodell? I rarely agree with Jerry Jones, but Goodell should also go.
Use an outside arbiter to judge NCAA violations (like American Arbitration Association). Let the NCAA have an aggressive enforcement staff that investigates and files charges.

Bilas also has strong opinions about "amateurism" and "eligibility." His points are interesting, but I am not there yet.

By the way, Bilas is the obvious candidate to be Commissioner of NCAA Basketball.


The whole 3rd person "Bilastrator" character and discussion of "The Opus" is hard to get past. Does Jay have to do that nonsense as some kind of WWE style character adoption for entertainment? Why? The man has interesting thoughts. Just write an article.

As for his suggestions, he does have some interesting points. Where I differ most strongly, however, is on the recommendation for schools to self-determine eligibility. The case study for how that goes wrong is UNC, a case Jay seems to think proves his point. Yes...according to his argument, the NCAA had no business investigating UNC, because UNC should be able to determine whether its own athletes are eligible. But UNC, far outside of the AFAM courses, for a quarter century, made a farce of its own academic standards to keep athletes out of the classroom, on the field, and "eleigible". But this eligibility was achieved only by a complete abandonment of its own academic standards and by reclassifying normally abled but undereducated young men as learning disabled (rather than actually try to educate them). So Bilas's answer is to allow every school to simply declare their own standards for eligibility, when every school has the same temptation as UNC to simply rewrite eligibility rules to keep athletes on the field?

If we go down Jay's pathway, we should go all the way. Take the sports out of the universities entirely. If we're not going to make any attempt to educate these young athletes, don't put them on campuses. Just make a robust minor league system for football and basketball and be done with it.

Bilas can be commissioner for that league.

dudog84
11-11-2017, 12:20 PM
The Bilas ESPN article (http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/21250068/the-bilas-opus-gives-everything-need-know-college-basketball) on how to fix college hoops is worth reading. It was cited previously, and the poster was turned off by Bilas's fake pomposity for the first 200-300 words.

Uh, I don't think it was fake.

BD80
11-11-2017, 12:39 PM
The Bilas ESPN article (http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/21250068/the-bilas-opus-gives-everything-need-know-college-basketball) on how to fix college hoops is worth reading. ...

Sorry Sage. You have earned a tremendous level of credibility in my book, but Bilas has spent every bit of that and more recently.

Bilas, worth reading? Pishaw.

fuse
11-11-2017, 12:45 PM
I posted something similar in a different thread.

The first paragraph of this article is both Bilas’ “jump the shark” moment as well as fully embracing (a la Dick Vitale) that he is now a caricature of himself.

It’s a shame, as I very much like and respect Jay Bilas.

Atlanta Duke
11-11-2017, 12:56 PM
The whole 3rd person "Bilastrator" character and discussion of "The Opus" is hard to get past. Does Jay have to do that nonsense as some kind of WWE style character adoption for entertainment? Why? The man has interesting thoughts. Just write an article.

The E in ESPN stands for entertainment, not education. Jay is encouraged to perform this routine to draw ratings and page clicks - it goes back at ESPN to Chris Berman starting out playing it straight and becoming a caricature.

I would not be surprised if ESPN has metrics for how many clicks Jay's articles without bells and whistles have drawn compared to Jay as Mr. Bilastrator.

BandAlum83
11-11-2017, 04:52 PM
The Bilas ESPN article (http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/21250068/the-bilas-opus-gives-everything-need-know-college-basketball) on how to fix college hoops is worth reading. It was cited previously, and the poster was turned off by Bilas's fake pomposity for the first 200-300 words.

There is a lot of meat in the article after that beginning. What impressed me:


For economic purposes, NCAA hoops is the NCAA -- it is the source of virtually all its funding and is a multi-billion dollar industry on its own. (Football, i believe everyone recognizes, has gone its own way and doesn't contribute to NCAA coffers.)
Hire a commissioner with powers to maneuver the sport in these complex times (OAD, agents, shoe companies, etc.).
Reduce the number of Division I schools from the astronomical number of 351 to about 120, which is manageable and which will be healthier economically. Allow the schools left out to still qualify for March Madness.
Fire Mark Emmert. The NCAA is a mess, and he must take responsibility. I would agree. The NBA, college football and major league baseball are running smoothly these days, which is a credit to their leadership. I would lump NCAA hoops with the NFL as popular sports that are being mismanaged. Anyone else notice that the NBA's Adam Silver is doing a three hundred percent better job than the NFL's Roger Goodell? I rarely agree with Jerry Jones, but Goodell should also go.
Use an outside arbiter to judge NCAA violations (like American Arbitration Association). Let the NCAA have an aggressive enforcement staff that investigates and files charges.

Bilas also has strong opinions about "amateurism" and "eligibility." His points are interesting, but I am not there yet.

By the way, Bilas is the obvious candidate to be Commissioner of NCAA Basketball.

Thanks sage. I'm bookmarking it and saving to read later. First I got some work to do on these here boards.

gray
11-11-2017, 11:34 PM
I think that Jay’s suggestion to allow players to be employed by outside entities has some merit. If top athletes had the ability to establish a passive income stream, I’d have no problem with that. I am still struggling to wrap my mind around the idea of a univeristy paying a student a salary for playing a sport. His other suggestions seemed reasonable.

Also, I agree that Bilas’persona is insufferable. That article was difficult to read.

SoCalDukeFan
11-12-2017, 12:08 AM
The whole 3rd person "Bilastrator" character and discussion of "The Opus" is hard to get past. Does Jay have to do that nonsense as some kind of WWE style character adoption for entertainment? Why? The man has interesting thoughts. Just write an article.

As for his suggestions, he does have some interesting points. Where I differ most strongly, however, is on the recommendation for schools to self-determine eligibility. The case study for how that goes wrong is UNC, a case Jay seems to think proves his point. Yes...according to his argument, the NCAA had no business investigating UNC, because UNC should be able to determine whether its own athletes are eligible. But UNC, far outside of the AFAM courses, for a quarter century, made a farce of its own academic standards to keep athletes out of the classroom, on the field, and "eleigible". But this eligibility was achieved only by a complete abandonment of its own academic standards and by reclassifying normally abled but undereducated young men as learning disabled (rather than actually try to educate them). So Bilas's answer is to allow every school to simply declare their own standards for eligibility, when every school has the same temptation as UNC to simply rewrite eligibility rules to keep athletes on the field?

If we go down Jay's pathway, we should go all the way. Take the sports out of the universities entirely. If we're not going to make any attempt to educate these young athletes, don't put them on campuses. Just make a robust minor league system for football and basketball and be done with it.

Bilas can be commissioner for that league.

The un-cheat case proves that universities can not be trusted when it comes to athletics and eligibility.

elvis14
11-12-2017, 10:03 AM
I will not read Bilas. When he took UNCheats side despite clear evidence of 20+ years of cheating, he lost all credibility.

burnspbesq
11-12-2017, 05:27 PM
Bilas unquestioningly accepts the premise that it is appropriate for universities to provide a multi-hundred-million dollar subsidy to the NBA by running its player development system without compensation. Once you make that error, anything else you say is wrong.

sagegrouse
11-12-2017, 06:05 PM
Bilas unquestioningly accepts the premise that it is appropriate for universities to provide a multi-hundred-million dollar subsidy to the NBA by running its player development system without compensation. Once you make that error, anything else you say is wrong.

You mean like college football?

Wander
11-12-2017, 06:50 PM
Fire Mark Emmert. The NCAA is a mess, and he must take responsibility. I would agree. The NBA, college football and major league baseball are running smoothly these days, which is a credit to their leadership. I would lump NCAA hoops with the NFL as popular sports that are being mismanaged. Anyone else notice that the NBA's Adam Silver is doing a three hundred percent better job than the NFL's Roger Goodell?

The NBA, yes. College football? It has all the problems college basketball has but in a more extreme version, plus the general nonsense and corruption involved with bowl games, plus the concussion issue. Maybe the most recent topic of the day is the basketball assistant coaches getting arrested, but don't mistake that as college football being clean.

sagegrouse
11-12-2017, 07:30 PM
The NBA, yes. College football? It has all the problems college basketball has but in a more extreme version, plus the general nonsense and corruption involved with bowl games, plus the concussion issue. Maybe the most recent topic of the day is the basketball assistant coaches getting arrested, but don't mistake that as college football being clean.

Leaving concussion aside (it may change the sport profoundly -- and should), college football doesn't have the one-and-done problem where the top teams turn over their starting lineup nearly every season. Also, college basketball has 351 Div. I teams -- you gotta be kidding? College football has about 130 or so. "Clean" wasn't the standard -- "well-managed" was. I don't think the bowl games mean very much, except money and TV ratings. The CFP system finally puts a cap or rationality on the championship, although it is not March Madness by any means.