By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
For many years, NCAA athletes weren’t paid, while collegiate sports were among the most lucrative sports businesses.
However, with the money spent on NIL deals and also players who have even been drafted by the NBA, getting back to the NCAA, as it happened with James Nnaji recently, totally changes the previous landscape.
The NCAA is just another league, which FIBA wants to regulate, and one of the most prominent NCAA basketball coaches, Rick Pitino, admits that things are completely different.
As he wrote on X: “Everything I’m reading from college coaches is great stuff, but what’s not being said is that it’s no longer college basketball. It’s professional basketball with budgets that rival the Euroleague. So pros have trade deadlines. The G League is way below college basketball on a pay scale. Even two-way players are way below. Unfortunately, the game I’ve been in for over 40 years no longer exists.”
This is one more proof that the NCAA system is broken, and while Nnaji, due to his status as an NBA draftee, turned heads in the US, it has to be noted that many players who are adults and have played professionally in European leagues are considered eligible, leading to a mass exodus of young talent to the NCAA.
Of course, when this first batch of players end their NCAA tenure may return to Europe, but until this happens in two or three years down the line, all top European talent is heading to the US with colleges paying them more than enough to even cover buyout clauses in pro contracts.