USA Basketball ‘surprised,’ ‘confused’ by NCAA reforms

By ADAM ZAGORIA

One day after reports had USA Basketball “blindsided” by NCAA reforms in college basketball, the organization’s CEO used the terms “surprised” and “confused” to describe the changes.

In an interview with ESPN’s Seth Greenberg from the Bahamas, Jim Tooley said his organization was caught off guard by the NCAA’s proposal that USA Basketball would determine which “elite” high school athletes could hire agents in the new system.

“The one thing that surprised us yesterday was just the piece on the player agents,” Tooley said. “That kids could get an agent in high school if we had identifed them as an elite athlete. However, we told the NCAA weeks ago that wasn’t a good solution because our universe of junior national team players is not encompassing every NBA prospect and it doesn’t include international players, so that was just the one little area where there was some confusion.”

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said Wednesday on air that USA Basketball was “blindsided” by that component, while Kentucky coach John Calipari said no changes were likely to happen in that space until 2022, when the NBA could get rid of the “one-and-done” rule.

ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla also called out the agent component of the changes on Twitter.

Hey, @NCAA, does elite player sign a letter of intent with an agent? Can he transfer from one agent to another? Whose definition of an “elite player” is it? Be honest, did your fellow stakeholders, @usabasketball & @nba know this was coming today?

— Fran Fraschilla (@franfraschilla) August 8, 2018

Still, Tooley said USA Basketball has been working with the NCAA, the NBA and the NBA Players Association on the proposed changes.

As for what role USA Basketball should play, Tooley said they were open to helping out with camps and events during July recruiting under the revised summer schedule.

“We’ve been talking with the NCAA about collaborating with them, the NBA and the NBA Players Association, about working with them in the July space,” he said. “We haven’t really defined what those specifics are going to be but we think the collective credibilty of all of in that space could really improve the landscape.”

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