The Hammer and Rails Podcast discusses the recent news.
The NCAA is a sham. Everyone knew NIL was coming down the pipeline and that as the governing body new rules from the NCAA seemed likely. Instead, what the NCAA did was basically nothing. Instead, the NCAA put their head in the sand and just let the stampede run over them and hope for the best. During football season there were some deals that got a little bit out of hand but honestly I don’t think it went too crazy. The transfer portal in basketball has been a whole other animal entirely.
This all come home this past week as the highly recruited transfer Nijel Pack made his ultimate decision but sadly for us he didn’t choose the Boilermakers. Instead, he committed to the Hurricanes of Miami. This sort of thing happens all the time and so you can kind of brush this off BUT this year there’s a twist. Nijel Pack was offered $800K over a two year period, plus a car (make and model unknown) to choose to come to Miami. Like any sane human being he took the offer and will suit up in Miami next year.
So, what does this all mean for Purdue basketball? The stars seemed to be all aligned for Pack to come to Purdue. His former coach was Bruce Weber, he played high school basketball in Indiana, Purdue had a clear opening at his position. Then, it all fell apart. To our knowledge right now Pack was not offered any money or promised any sort of inducement/NIL to come to Purdue. Is this the way of the future? The Assistant Athletic Director at Purdue indicated in an interview with Gold and Black that a collective is coming and be done the “Purdue way”. I for one don’t know what that means. Could it be too little too late?
Casey and I discuss what this means for Purdue basketball and their rivals in the conference. This particularly makes us worry about places like IU who have a known billionaire booster in Mark Cuban who greatly cares about sports and basketball in particular.
Also, what does this mean for mid-ranked players who go to mid majors or lower tier high major programs? Will they use those schools as mere stopping posts to try and earn themselves some money to finish their careers?
You add the transfer portal and NIL together and the landscape of college basketball hasn’t just changed it has tectonically shifted. I’m talking Pangea going to the current continents. This is Earth shattering stuff. How long will it continue and how will Purdue respond? This is something that both the NCAA and Purdue have to find responses to. Purdue wants to compete but the NCAA wants to remain relevant. As the song goes, the times they are a changing.