Jalen Rose: Players should boycott NCAA tournament

Story by USA Today
Written by Andrew Joseph

ESPN personality Jalen Rose is tired of waiting for change to happen with the NCAA. He wants to see players take a stand now.

College basketball was rocked over the weekend with the latest report into the sport's widespread corruption. None more shocking than the ESPN report alleging that Arizona head coach Sean Miller was caught on FBI wiretaps discussing payment to star prospect Deandre Ayton.

It was another major black eye to the sport. Yet, come Monday, it was almost business as usual. Players named in the Yahoo! Sports report were cleared to return to action within days. Miller - after denying the ESPN report - chose to travel back to Tucson while Ayton still played against Oregon on Saturday. Really, little changed in the short term.

That was why Rose called on NCAA players to take the drastic step of boycotting next month's NCAA tournament. He explained during Monday's Jalen & Jacoby that the only way to bring along change in a broken system is to hit the NCAA's bottom line.



Rose said:

"I wish NCAA players understood the power that they now have. In a climate of so many things that are changing, so many discussions that have now come to the forefront that have been closeted for so very long - for a multitude of reasons. I wish NCAA players would exercise that power by boycotting the NCAA tournament."

He continued:

"Imagine this: No different from what I said with the NFL players when they were doing their protest at the beginning of the year. Imagine if they would have shown up on a Sunday and decided not to play. The exact same thing with the NCAA tournament. How many people pay attention to collegiate basketball in March? (Millions). How many people in office pools and casual basketball fans or people who never watch basketball at all are filling out NCAA brackets? (Tons) Why are they filling out those brackets?

"Fun? Interesting?! They're doing it to bet! They're doing it for the money. The mula. The dinero. That's why they're doing it. So as a player you now have equity. If they decided and band together and said, 'We not performing tonight. We want to make a statement.' Do you think reform would start happening real fast? I do."

In 2016, the NCAA and CBS/Turner extended NCAA tournament broadcast rights until 2032 in a deal worth $8.8 billion.
___________________________________________
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2018/02/28/why-missouri-bet-big-cuonzo-martin-and-pay-keeps-rising-sec-big-ten/365869002/