Politics and sports crossed paths Wednesday.
In an interview on “CBS This Morning,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said it’s time for the NCAA to reform college basketball.
McCaskill, who originally voiced her opinion on “one and done” college basketball players after Duke University beat the University of Wisconsin in the championship game last week, said Wednesday the phenomenon of players spending one year at playing at the college level and then declaring for the NBA “is not good.”
“This isn’t about those young men. This is about a system that the grownups have allowed to come into place where you have a crazy situation where a coach is making $10 million a year and these players can’t afford to go home and visit their families. It’s nuts,” McCaskill said.
Spending one year in college and then going to the NBA means the players should not be called “students” because they are being recruited “for an NBA tryout, not to go college.”
Reform the system, she insisted, putting forth two options.
“Either say let’s stop the artifice of pretending” and let players go straight from high school to college, or, “if you’re not going to go straight from high school and you’re going to be in college, let’s make sure that these kids at least have a stipend so they’re not having to break the rules to have enough money to go out for pizza,” she said.