Kansas, Michigan, UCLA, St. John’s, Oklahoma State and Cincinnati are among college basketball’s royalty. But this season they share another distinction: Each has lost a player, at least temporarily, to an NCAA witch hunt. The NCAA’s target is summer basketball, a lawless subculture too often controlled by low-rent adults who view talented children as cash cows. These parasites, some independently and others with the blessing of shoe companies, attach themselves to premier players in hopes of influencing their college choice and cashing in on a future professional contract. But as unseemly as the summer can be, the NCAA enforcement staff has no hope of policing it. Heck, the NCAA can’t control college coaches and athletes, much less thousands of community-based summer programs. Moreover, the NCAA has no business interfering (in large part) because it penalizes the athletes who are the pawns in this deal. The kingpins, the adults, walk away often with fatter wallets.
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