NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The sport Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is leaving is run by an organization he doesn’t much recognize anymore.
Or like at all.
The 75-year-old coach, whose career ends after Duke is done at the Final Four, used the opportunity of what could be his last big news conference Friday to spell out issues he feels will haunt college basketball and the NCAA until they’re fixed. Most of his solutions had something to do with blowing up the entire operation and starting over.
“This is not the time to look at knits and bits,” Krzyzewski said. “It’s time to look at the whole thing.”
The biggest issue is the onslaught of “name, image and likeness” deals that have reshaped college sports since last summer in largely unregulated fashion. The deals give players the long-sought ability to make millions, but the NCAA has not figured out a way to regulate them, leaving that up to schools, state legislatures and, someday, maybe Congress.
Other issues include the newly relaxed transfer portal, the inequalities between men’s and women’s basketball, the growingly complex infractions process and the future of “One and Done.” That rule allows basketball players to enter the NBA after one year of school; it’s a rule that Krzyzewski has benefitted from as much as anyone over the last few decades of his 47-year career.
“Who does the NBA talk to in basketball for us?” Krzyzewski said. “They don’t know. I know (commissioner) Adam Silver better than anyone on the NCAA.”
Krzyzewski raised the issues as a follow-up to a question he’d received the day before when asked what he would ask NCAA President Mark Emmert. At that time, Coach K was somewhat unprepared for that question and answered, simply: “I think the first one is, where are we going? And who is going to be in charge?”
Given 24 hours to reflect, he came back to the interview room and, without being asked, suggested the NCAA has grown too big and lumbering to do the deft…