Marching in with a limp

No simple solution to fixing college basketball's problems

March Madness, with its upsets and buzzer-beaters, celebrations and tears, begins in earnest the next two days as the nation’s top teams begin their conference tournaments.

Unfortunately, they do so at a time when college basketball is facing several more serious issues than whether Butler’s bubble will burst or who will get the No. 1 seeds.

Scandals at Georgia, St. Bonaventure and Fresno State have exposed a behind-the-scenes stench that transcends basketball and strikes at the very core of what college is all about: academics. At Fresno State, it was the writing of players' papers, at St. Bonaventure the admittance of an unqualified transfer student, at Georgia three players receiving phantom "A's" in a class taught by their coach.

"As a college basketball coach, I'm upset for the future of game," said Maryland coach Gary Williams. "Somebody has to be accountable. You can't blame just one group of people for this, unfortunately."

On the surface these scandals, like any number before them, involve the misdeeds of slippery coaches and questionable student-athletes.

What distinguishes them, however, is that they all reach to the highest level of a university: the president's office. Fresno State's John Welty and Georgia's Michael Adams ignored obvious warning signs in hiring the ethically questionable Jerry Tarkanian and Jim Harrick, respectively, while St. Bonaventure's Robert Wickenheiser personally green-lighted the admission of an player who failed to gain his junior college degree.

All of this comes just months after the NCAA handed its own reins to a university president, Indiana’s Myles Brand, in an effort to start shifting the direction of college athletics back in the hands of its institutions.

Figures from all walks of athletics and academia agree on the need for reform in college basketball. But when even the men most trusted with maintaining a university's integrity aren't above corruption, where do you start?

Some, like Hodding Carter, are pushing for change at the broadest level possible. President and CEO of the Knight Foundation and its reform-minded Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, Carter is part of a small but growing movement to completely overhaul the concept of big-time college sports.

"There is an underlying sickness in this field," he said. "I think that at the end of day, the notion of the athletic contests of our universities as coliseum events -- whose purpose is to draw crowds and draw massive revenue -- is a direct contradiction to the mission of higher education."

There are plenty in academia who would agree with Carter. But no university in its right mind is going to walk away from the potential riches of Division I basketball and the $6 billion CBS pays to televise the NCAA tournament, nor will millions of feverish fans and alumni quell their interest.

Realistically, college basketball needs to clean up its act without biting the hands that feed it.

The NCAA, of course, is the governing body charged with that mission, an organization many within college sports find antiquated. A monstrous bureaucracy with a never-ending book of often trivial rules and haphazard enforcement, it must administer and police every college sport, major or minor, and is often slow to respond to quick-developing and often unique situations within an individual sport.

"I've always believed we should have a governance agency for college basketball, under the NCAA umbrella, that would be focused on it on a day-to-day basis, 365 days a year," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. "It's not to say the NCAA hasn't done a good job with the current structure they have, but our sport is too big to be run by committee."

Krzyzewski is considered the model within his profession for producing championship-caliber teams while maintaining academic integrity. Others, however, are marred by deplorable graduation rates, their players littering the police blotter.

That’s because at nearly every level, coaches are paid -- some at or approaching seven figures -- for one reason and one reason only: to win. Don't, and they're fired.

Faced with such an ultimatum, some, not surprisingly, cut corners. Even if they caught, the school, not the coach, gets punished. This year's Michigan players, for instance, are banned from the NCAA tournament for decade-old violations -- but Steve Fisher, the coach under whom those misdeeds occurred, is gainfully employed by San Diego State, which could earn an NCAA bid by winning the Mountain West tournament this weekend.

"There's got to be more punishment on the people directly involved," said Michigan State's Tom Izzo. "Maybe if coaches were not only punished but banned if they were found guilty of something. Maybe we need to self-police ourselves better -- I don't think there's many coaches turning each other in."

Then there are those who feel the main source of the game's problems is its players. Be it a poor upbringing or the infiltration of street agents, shoe company reps or other hangers-on, today's hoops phenoms are trained from an early age to set their sights not on an education but the riches of the NBA. Such preps-to-the-pros success stories as Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady serve as their model.

Therefore, it's no surprise that many of those who do go the college route look at it not as a destination but a temporary springboard, classes and majors just a way of staying eligible.

Tony Cole, the ex-player whose accusations brought about Georgia's investigation, had jumped between seven high schools, prep schools and junior colleges before landing in Athens. Jamil Terrell, the player whose ineligibility caused St. Bonaventure to forfeit six games, had only a certificate in welding to his credit.

Why do coaches keep opening their doors to such misfits? Because in basketball, one player can mean the difference between the NCAAs and the NIT.

"There has to be a priority of maintaining that these are student-athletes, and those who don't want to be students and athletes need to go elsewhere," said SMU president Gerald Turner, a member of the Knight Commission. "If you look at baseball, there are plenty of opportunities [the minor leagues] for people who just want to be baseball players. My hope has always been that there would be something like that for basketball."

Not likely. Recent attempts at basketball minor leagues have been met with little interest, and besides, if every player with legitimate pro aspirations bypassed college, would the college game still be worth watching?

And so the conundrum goes on and on.

How sharply can the academic side be reformed without negatively affecting the game? How much emphasis can continue to be placed on the game without making a total mockery of academics?

And is it even feasible anymore in today’s entertainment-driven culture for the two to coexist?

"I’d be really sad,” said Purdue coach Gene Keady, “if we couldn't fill arenas and still do it with integrity."

Stewart Mandel covers college sports for SI.com.

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