THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Portal not helping grow good games

It seems impossible that I’m saying this.

I’m tired of college basketball.

No, not the game itself.

Give me a few less 3-pointers, and I’d still be jazzed up to watch the sport.

My real problem, and there are millions of former fans in agreement, has to do with the way things are run these days.

The whole thing is a mess.

You’re going to say: “Yeah, it’s gotten crazy with NIL money and the transfer portal.”

You’d be half-right, at the very least.

Consider: Robert Morris University, a school in Moon Township, Pa., qualified for the NCAA tournament by winning the Horizon League.

It was RMU’s 10th trip to the Big Dance.

The Colonials entered the tournament with a 26-8 record (the same as Gonzaga), received a 15-seed and lost their first-round 90-81 to Alabama after a hell of a scrap.

Just about the time we would have been celebrating Robert Morris’ excellent season, though, there was stunning news.

All five of the Colonials’ starters vanished into the transfer portal.

Yep, all five.

I’m sure these guys are decent players, and if some are leaving to grab a chunk of NIL money that wasn’t available previously … well, bless ‘em.

I DON’T have any problem with that.

What grills my gizzards about this whole system, though, is that it’s pure free agency.

With free get-out clauses.

If a point guard wants to change schools, he jumps into the portal. 

He won’t be lonely.

There are more than a thousand players in the portal already this year, and we haven’t even watched the Final Four yet.

OK, now my problem (which is shared by Gonzaga’s Mark Few) is that when the portal spits these men and women out in new locations, they’ll be immediately eligible.

Until 2021, athletes transferring schools had to sit out one full year.

They could practice with their new teams, but not play in any regular-season games.

It made sense.

These student-athletes logically need time to blend into their new colleges academically and culturally, in addition to bonding with their new sports rosters.

That year sitting out also kept college athletes from jumping all over the place, as they can do now.

They don’t necessarily benefit from such a hobo education, either.

Zags guard Khalif Battle was in tears after the loss to Houston in the NCAA tournament.

Battle said his greatest regret was not being at Gonzaga the whole time, instead of attending three other schools before landing in Spokane.

Look, if an athlete has a chance to make NIL money by switching schools, I have absolutely no problem with that.

But.

The rule on waiting a year to play should be reinstated, and nobody would have to worry.

The new university’s collective (which actually pays out the cash) will happily hold your money.

Hey, even if we accept NIL, which was coming for years and provides athletes with a share of what they’re earning for their schools, we do NOT need to connect it with the transfer portal.

They should be separate entities.

YES, I’M fine with college athletes earning money for their skills.

This is a capitalist country, and everyone is entitled to make a buck.

But the portal, and immediate eligibility with unlimited transfers?

It’s gotten nuts.

Nobody loves the good things about college hoops more than Dick Vitale, and even Dickie V believes this current set-up needs to be fixed.

He has trouble grasping the absurd freedom that college athletes have inherited through various rule changes.

“It’s a better free agency than what the pros have,” Vitale said on a national TV show. 

“At least in the pros, you have a contract. I think they’ve got to think about a contract. The kids deserve money; I have no problem with that, but the bottom line is this chaotic movement. There’s no stability.”

Amen.

Some type of contract, even a deal with the school’s off-campus collective, would settle these young people down in one place.

It would be even better if the contract contained a provision that the athlete had to wait a year to play — while still getting paid.

Collective will fight that on the front end, but they surely would have no problem adding language that their athlete/client cannot play for a year if they leave this school on a free-agent whim.

Somehow, some way, we have to restore that season of ineligibility.

Or the current chaos will get worse.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press three times each week, normally Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”