Season Opens Monday Night

After an exhibition season marked by Syracuse's home loss to LeMoyne, the official season begins Monday night with the tip-off of the 2K Sports Classic when the Orange will have a chance to redeem itself.

Syracuse, No. 6 North Carolina, No. 13 California and No. 16 Ohio State will each host games in the regional round. The sexiest matchup is between the Tar Heels and Florida International, coached by Isiah Thomas in his first season as a college coach.

The UNC-FIU game should not be very competitive, but it should serve some foresight into how Thomas' team will handle playing on the big stage and as an underdog, which it will do for most of its games this season. The game will air on ESPNU at 6 p.m. CDT Monday.

The other matchups include Syracuse vs. Albany, Ohio State vs. Alcorn St. and California vs. Murray St. The only other intriguing contest out of these three - barring another Syracuse sputtering - is the Golden Bears against the Racers.

The Racers return all five starters in a program that has a tradition of winning. They are picked to compete for the Ohio Valley Conference championship, and don't be surprised if Cal needs the final five minutes to put this game away. The Racer to watch is guard Danero Thomas, who led the team with 12 ppg last season and has a microwaveable jumper, meaning it can heat up quickly.

The 2K Sports Classic continues Wednesday when Syracuse hosts Robert Morris, North Carolina plays NC-Central, and Cal plays host to Detroit. On Thursday, James Madison plays at Ohio State. The championship rounds begin Nov. 19 when Syracuse plays Cal and North Carolina plays Ohio State at Madison Square Garden.

The season gets underway for most teams Friday when there are 126 Division 1 games.

NCAA Rule Changes Good for the Sport

The clean-up of college basketball recruiting had to start somewhere.

The NCAA approved new rules on recruiting Friday, aimed at restricting money funneled to third parties. The goal of the rule changes is to eliminate recruiting tactics, such as "package deals" or subscribing to recruiting information services in order to have access to a recruit.

A package deal is when the AAU or high school coach of a highly sought-after recruit is hired onto a college basketball coaching staff in order to lure that player to the school. Coaches such as John Calipari have used this tactic in the past. That has not yet been deemed illegal, but will be voted on in April with the likelihood of it passing at that time.

The rule that was changed immediately does not allow coaches to hire anyone associated with a prosepctive student-athlete to work at a camp or clinic, which is a step in the direction of outlawing package deals.

Coaches also cannot make payments to non-profit organizations, a category under which most AAU teams fall. That rule is more to protect the coaches than to rein in their hazy recruiting tactics.

Some AAU coaches or teams demand that coaches interested in one of their players must pony up cash and register for their on-line recruiting information service. The problem is most such "services" provide little to no information on the prospective student-athlete and merely are a way for AAU coaches to hold coaches hostage and squeeze a few bucks out of them at the expense of the athlete. Those associated with the athlete or in effect pimping out an 18-year-old kid in order to make some money off of a college coach. This rule change makes such payments illegal.

Those coaches found in violation of these rules could be suspended from coaching regular-season and NCAA Tournament games, which is a potential punishment that should effectively hinder coaches from trying to break them.

It has become evident that with the onset of on-line recruiting services and the expansion of many programs' coaching staffs these rule changes were badly needed. Before Friday, coaches could hire associates of Recruit A or Recruit B and assign them to made-up positions merely in hopes of gaining the services of that recruit.

Now the playing field has been evened, allowing coaches to stop worrying about having to recruit not only the players, but also the player's AAU coach or other associate. The rule change allows coaches to go back to simply recruiting the player and his family, which is the way it should be and will allow coaches and recruits to better determine the best fit for their college lives.

As much as these rule changes are positive for the game and most coaches will undoubtedly embrace them, it would be naive to think that some other coaches haven't already determined a way to circumvent this rule to get a leg up in recruiting.

Such is the state of college basketball these days. If you're not cheating, you're not trying. But hopefully this is a sign of things to come with tighter monitoring of recruiting and the less shady back-door deals the better the sport will become for everyone -- except those greedy AAU coaches.

For more information, here's a link to Michelle Brutlag Hosick's article at NCAA.org: http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?key=/ncaa/ncaa/ncaa+news/ncaa+news+online/2009/division+i/board+approves+basketball+recruiting+reforms_10_29_09_ncaa_news