Legendary college basketball coach Rick Pitino has voiced his concerns about the NCAA’s new NIL policy in the past.
But he blew up about the topic after his Iona Gaels defeated the Manhattan Jaspers Friday night.
Once the topic turned to NIL, the two-year-old policy that lets athletes profit from their Name, Image and Likeness, Pitino cut loose. Lohud.com’s Eugene Rapay captured the rant in a Twitter thread that showed the 70-year-old Pitino attacking virtually every aspect of NIL.
Rick Pitino with an all-time rant on NIL and the NCAA (1/9): "I was around when 🏀 could parallel 🏈 in my early years of coaching, now if you look at the TV ratings it's ridiculous. The way🏀sagged & 🏈 has become gigantic. Big 🏈schools have a huge advantage over everyone..
— Eugene Rapay (@erapay5) February 18, 2023
Pitino was just getting warmed up.
“Now they (NCAA) don’t know what to do about NIL to get it under control, because they’re going after HS kids,” Pitino said. “So what’s going to happen? There’ll be 2000 kids in the portal and you know what they are? Free agents. …
“They’re going around seeing who will offer the most money. 1,000 kids are going to be free agents and they’ll be free agents next year. It’s a difficult thing and the NCAA was once again just reactive, never proactive. …”
The NCAA, Pitino said, did not have a plan before implementing NIL.
“Congress was after them for years about not giving players money back from the tournament,” Pitino said. “Now they’re behind the 8-ball and don’t know what to do about it. Quite frankly, none of us know what to do about it.”
While Pitino’s happy the players are finally making money, he says there’s more at stake.
