Time for college basketball to be alternative to NBA, not its prep school

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A question Monday evening following the Razorbacks' 103-74 win in an SEC tune-up game over James Madison lit such a fire under Arkansas coach John Calipari that as soon as he finished his passionate seven-minute rant, the Hogs head coach openly lamented being asked the question.

"The rules be the rules!"

That's the phrase that will forever stand out from Calipari's plea for some sense of order and normalcy in college basketball. It's easy to picture it anchoring a major insurance ad campaign several years from now.

While so many who rue what college sports has become nod along to every word and fist pound of Calipari's with a quiet "amen" slipping out under their breath as they seethe at the thought of rosters of close to 100 players reduced to 15 every winter and basketball seasons being reliant on the personal profit margins of oil and chicken tycoons, their laments have little affect on reality.

That's because the more accurate statement would have been "The rules were the rules!"

You know, the ones Arkansas fans used to think Alabama football and the blue tie wearing version of Calipari knew well, but ignored anyway in hopes of being able to cheat their way to a championship by running over squeaky clean programs like the Razorbacks which had no skeletons nor mistresses to hide.

Now there are zero rules across college sports, and if there were, who would enforce them? There once was a day where the dreaded NCAA would come spend three years investigating something and then slap some sort of penalty on players and likely even a coach who had nothing to do with what was going on years before.

Not even the FBI has power over NCAA basketball. In 2017, Will Wade, Rick Pitino and Sean Miller were reportedly at the heart of an FBI investigation into shady things happening in the world of college basketball that was reportedly as close to open and shut as it gets.

Fast forward to this past March and Wade was announcing his intention to leave McNeese State for North Carolina State after a couple of tournament appearances, Pitino was bounced by Arkansas in upset fashion, but not before his Red Storm became the talk of college basketball with their own song on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon," and Miller accepted the call to go take over the Texas Longhorns.

Now the first of what are expected to be several NBA and NBA adjacent players have begun to trickle into the 2025-26 road to the national championship story line with 31st overall pick of the 2023 draft James Nnaji headed to play for Scott Drew over at Baylor.

No one is going to stop this from happening. The second the NCAA attempts to utter the dreaded "N" word in relation to Nnaji — "No!" — then a lawsuit will follow and he will end up playing anyway with some new Diego Pavia type rule established by the courts to make things even more absurd, like the recent junior college time doesn't count toward eligibility decision.

Instead of fighting the inevitable, why not lean into it a bit. Keep four or five guys from the previous season, sign the three high school players with NBA draft grades like always, and fill out the rest of the roster with high level transfers and NBA/G-League players who either aren't happy with playing time or how much money they're making.

It's time to stop looking at college basketball as a prep school for the NBA. Instead, go back to carrying the sport as an alternative to the NBA, which is something it ironically was closer to doing back in the days when the rules were deeply beloved and enforced than they are now with contracts surpassing a million.

It would make a huge difference if college basketball was promoted the way the Chicago Bulls used to promote their games back in the day to a national audience.

Promote the players and the sports. Market big name teams, big name coaches and big show downs as huge, borderline once in a lifetime events. The elite players in the league should be almost as well known as their NBA star counterparts.

It was impossible for fans to not know who Dick Vitale's "Diaper Dandies" were heading into a new college season back in the '90s and they almost always turned out to be huge stars whom everyone knew within a year or two.

Arkansas forward Trevon Brazile should be as well known for his theoretical promotion of Frontier Airlines as Arch Manning is for his Warby Parker commercials.

"Hi, I'm Arkansas Razorbacks forward Trevon Brazile and when my family wants to come see me take off down the runway of Bud Walton Arena and slam one home on yet another victim, I make sure they show up on Frontier Airlines. Frontier Airlines. The only way Hogs fans can take flight like me and not have to take out a second mortgage on an oil field to land at the Northwest Arkansas airport."

Nearly every American should know who Brazile, fellow Razorback Darius Acuff and Duke freshman star Cam Boozer are. It should be as difficult to not know as it is that Patrick Mahomes is the quarterback at Kansas City and Dak Prescott is calling signals in Dallas.

The irony of Calipari's statement is he is the only person who truly has the clout to push and see exactly where the rules start. As someone who despises the idea of those who cheat and lie their way to the success, and in some cases even failure, if Calipari were crossing a line, he would be called out quickly under this byline.

However, there simply are no rules and Razorbacks football has already showed how difficult it can be to compete at a high level while trying to adhere to rules that don't exist. In fact, the only way there may ever be rules again is for someone who is both respected and despised in an old school John Cena type way to push the envelope so far that both sides of the argument agree a wall has been tapped.

If it turns out there actually is no wall, then who better to lead an all out assault on making the league we now know as college basketball the premiere entertainment sport during the cold chill of winter in America.

Move over Oklahoma City Thunder. Calipari and his pals are coming for your bench players and fully intend to use them to taking you down in both ad space and in the ratings.

That is if college basketball remembers how marketing works and guys like Calipari and his buddy Tom Izzo up at Michigan State are willing to stop yelling about the lawn and get behind it.

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