With hordes of national media and a day off from competition here in Indianapolis, Duke basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski took a few opportunities to offer his thoughts on some of the larger issues in college basketball as the sport takes center stage in the national sports arena in late March. Here are a couple highlights that he riffed on at Duke's Saturday afternoon press conference.
On NCAA drug testing, which takes place randomly at championship events:
"You don't get to bed until 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning from the late game. And then we had drug testing afterwards, which—it's a question to ask for another time, I guess—why you would do a team that plays the late game?"
On questions facing the expanding ACC:
"Does our conference develop its own TV network? Where do we play the tournament? When do we play the tournament? How do we position our regular season? How do we have the teams that are playing play schedules that are worthy of being considered for NCAA consideration?... If we don't do that, then we're negligent."
On a proposal under consideration by the NCAA's Division I Leadership Council that would make sweeping changes to current rules around transferring, most notably allowing student-athletes with 2.6 GPAs or higher to transfer without sitting out a season:
"I'm not a big proponent of that one. If there was a players' union, these players would go at any time, anywhere. Just like coaches."
On the need for a dedicated basketball leadership within the NCAA power structure:
"President [Mark] Emmert is in charge of the entire NCAA. He's got a huge job. There should be somebody in charge of college basketball who does this on a day-to-day basis and understands everything about it.... Just so you know, when they put the dirt on me, inside, underneath the dirt, I'm still going to be yelling for somebody to run college basketball."
On the unfairness of rules that prevent transfers from traveling with the team until they are eligible to play, especially to Rodney Hood, who transferred to Duke from Mississippi State on July 1. The Chronicle profiled Hood's frustration with the rule earlier in the year, in which he said he felt like he was in prison. Coach K's take:
"He practices every day with the guys. He's part of the scout team and whatever. It's cruel.... No matter what they do as far as [changing transfer rules]—if you're one of the scholarship players, you should be allowed to travel and suit up. You should be on the bench. You're part of the team. The other thing that happens over the year...when we leave, where does he go? Who's responsible for him? I am, supposedly, but I'm at Virginia or Maryland. He's back in Durham. If something happened to him or whatever, people would say, 'Well, what were you doing?'"
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