The NCAA will be reviewing a number of proposals in the next few months that could change certain rules in men’s college basketball. According to a release from the NCAA on Friday, coaches having unlimited social media contact and NCAA championships being allowed in states that allow sports wagering are two of the many measures that will be evaluated in the next few months.
The MAC would like to lift all restrictions on communicating with recruits over social media, in-part because monitoring social media activity is so difficult and the coaches need to evolve with how the younger generation communicates.
The Mountain West Conference is sponsoring the proposal to have NCAA championships in states with sports wagering. This measure would specifically look to get Nevada involved in hosting, as the conference argues that many conference tournaments are being held in Las Vegas while the NCAA continues to withhold championship competition from Nevada.
“The Mountain West proposal is about the opportunity to host NCAA championships events. It would provide additional western locations as potential NCAA championships sites, which would decrease travel costs and missed class time,” the conference office said in the NCAA’s release. “Furthermore, Nevada is home to the nation’s most elite gaming enforcement agency (Nevada Gaming Control Board) which governs Nevada’s gaming industry through strict regulation of all persons, locations, practices, associations and related activities. This type of regulation decreases significantly the likelihood of any elicit gaming behavior related to the conduct of NCAA championships events in the state.”
While the social media use of coaches could open up in the newest round of voting, it might be a tough sell to get states with sports wagering to host NCAA championships.
There are 72 proposals in total that will be voted on by Division I members during the academic year, 14 of which pertain strictly to the 65 schools in the five power conferences that were granted autonomy.
The 14 measures for the five power conferences will be voted on in January at the 2016 NCAA Convention in San Antonio while the other 58 measures will take final votes in April 2016, unless, “the nature of the proposal requires earlier consideration.”
