|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYOctober 24, 2017Bob BowlsbyKansas City, Missouri COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: Thank you very much. Good morning all. Thanks for being here early on a Tuesday morning. Well, we're already scrimmaging, so I guess basketball is starting, regardless of whether football is yet completed. I think you will find that we have another group of excellent basketball teams. We've got terrific coaches and I just came from a meeting with our coaches, and a lot of great players. So like previous years, I think you will see us high in the RPI and I think we've got six teams that are receiving votes or are ranked in the top 25, including West Virginia and Kansas that are in the top ten. After a year when we had three in the Sweet 16, but didn't move on. We had an NIT championship last year, and I think TCU was probably playing about as well as anybody about the end of the year. One of the statistics I have seen that I've been interested in and doing a little more research on it, the average margin of victory in our conference last year for the entire season was only 7.9 points. We've had a lot of really competitive games. I think that's worn itself out in our nonconference performance because we're over 500 against every one of the autonomy conferences. Just a reminder, we do have a first and second round in Dallas this year on March 15 and 17, so we will be -- the conference will be hosting the postseason in addition to being here in March. Obviously, I think that this is the best college basketball tournament in the nation. It's the best attended. I think it's the most competitive. The balance from top to bottom is truly remarkable; and, so I think, you know, we will have a wild time between now and the time we're back here in March again. Relative to the broader environment, obviously all of you have been paying attention, as all of us have, to the Department of Justice and FBI investigations, and we really wish we had a fair amount more information on it. I don't have anything more than what all of you have. We certainly have always known that all of the best parts of college athletics and all the worst part of college athletics are imbedded in the sport of men's college basketball. Lots of high-risk academic people and high-risk social people and lots of third parties that are involved, and I think it's impossible to know at this point how far this goes or who might be involved in it. One thing about it, when DOJ and the FBI get involved they have both the power of subpoena and the weight of perjury which the NCAA doesn't have its disposal. As a result I think this is going to be around for a while, and I think we are likely to be in the same situation we're in now, and that is that we don't know very much information, aren't going to get heads-up before things happen; and as a result of that, it's a period of some discomfort. I think that our basketball enterprise in the Big 12 is impeccable. I think it's led by people of integrity in the coaches and I think Curtis Shaw, our coordinator of officials does a tremendous job, and John Underwood who leads basketball enterprise from a staff standpoint is extremely good at what he does and energetically engaged. I have a couple of other things to talk about this morning, but I will do that after I take questions. Happy to field questions for 10 or 12 minutes and then I will go on to the other things I have. Q. Bob, there have been a number of exhibition games for charity, couple days ago right here at the Sprint Center with a number of Big 12 teams involved. A number of people saying this would be a great thing to continue allow schools if they want to play an exhibition game for charity. Do you see that having momentum as far as NCAA approval? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: Well, first of all, I congratulate the schools that have been involved in these things because of the amount of money they've generated for charity. Our country has had the burden of several natural disasters that have been truly significant, and it's a good way for the sport of basketball to help, so I think that part of it has been good. We have settled on a number of games that are permissible under the rules and yet we've also encountered and there has been a proliferation of exempt contests. So what we thought was an absolute number on the number of games we were going to play has now morphed into something very with different than that. I'm spending most of my time on football oversight, among the responsibilities I have with the council, so I am not in the room for the oversight -- Basketball Oversight Committee's discussions. I know there has been concern about it just creating an additional game. When there's those that do it for charity, everybody else gets in line just to get an opportunity for another scrimmage or another game. I think there will be an extended discussion about it with basketball oversight and I wouldn't presume how that would come out. I haven't heard any momentum for making it a permanent waiver of the rule. That would take a more substantial effort, and if that has started I haven't heard it. Q. Just kinda wondering, the ACC I believe next year is going to a 20-game league schedule obviously because of the network. The Big Ten is toying with the idea. I wondered from the Big 12 aspect what that reaction might be. Is there any kind of reaction to possibility of Big 12 going to a 20-game schedule? Anything there? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: Well, we would have to have some play three times to get to 20 with ten members, so 18 is really sort of our max. I think the implication it has for us is that it probably makes nonconference scheduling a little more difficult with those two leagues. They made the changes in both cases to accommodate more network inventory and were we in the same position we might have made the same decision. So I think it may be more challenging for our schools to schedule Big Ten and ACC schools because they're not going to have as many games to play on a non conference basis. But we play a full double round Robin, which neither of them do. You're never going to win the Big 12 by who you don't play. You're going to have to see everybody twice. We love our model. We have enjoyed the No. 1 RPI for four of the last seven years. We think that our teams compete very well at the highest levels and I don't anticipate any changes in that. Q. Bob, my guess is that the league office didn't know -- or didn't learn about this FBI investigation until all of us, correct? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: That's correct. Q. After that happens, what did you guys do from a league perspective, as soon as Oklahoma State was named? Did you go to Stillwater and say, hey, what's going on? Do you reach out to other schools? What's your take on what the league's role should be in all of this? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: Well, even the schools' roles have been somewhat unclear because this is new territory and you're dealing with governmental agencies. So we've provided some -- we just had an ADs meeting last week and we provided some guidance from the center. I think everybody has the same reaction to it. They're not quite sure where to go, but there was guidance from the NCAA as to things that ought to be accomplished before the start of the season, going back and making sure that all of the I's are dotted and T's are crossed from the standpoint of certification and the squad lists and all the things you do going into the season. But surveillance of rule compliance is something our schools do all the time. It's a routine, almost daily part of how they operate. I don't know that any of this necessitates radical procedures on campus, but I think it also informs administrator and central administration individuals to ask questions and make sure that compliance is on the front of everybody's mind as they implement their day-to-day activities. Beyond that, I think we wait, like everybody else. Q. Speaking of football oversight, where does it stand on the 14-week schedule? What are the implications of that? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: We probably are not going to get a standardized 14-week schedule. There is a Competition Subcommittee of the Football Oversight Committee that's been working on this. Our principle intention was to get the preseason back within the box that is the month of August. As you know, by waiver, we went into the month of July this year. If you overlay the 14-week schedule with the schedule that we've put together from a safety and sports sciences standpoint, elimination of two-a-days, you find yourself up against the end of summer school and starting the last week of July. So the proposal that is going to come forward doesn't include the 14-week schedule. There were also a couple of elements of the 14-week schedule that were not as they appeared. As an example, it sounds good to have two byes during the regular season, but those two byes for some are going to end up bye-bye during the middle of the year. Somebody else is going to have bye, road game, bye. Some are going to have two byes in September and no byes in October and November. When you spread it across the breadth and depth of the schedule matrix, it is doesn't work out equally for everybody. And it also ignores what we have to do within conferences. Some conferences have rules that they don't allow nonconference games after the fourth week of the season. Others play nonconference games throughout the year. It just had a disparate affect and I think you will see a proposal that reduces the number of practices from 29 to 25 gets the start of camp back into the August window and then takes into account some of the other safety things that we've been trying to get. So I don't think 14 weeks is going to fly, but it's probably off the table for good and appropriate reasons. Q. Do you worry that the probe and scandal that has enveloped college basketball could encompass college football at some point? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: That has occurred to me. There are some of the same things that are present in college football, especially as you think of 7-on-7 and some of the nonscholastic aspects of it. And I think a lot of the basketball problems are imbedded in the club programs and the fact that, you know, if you're a top-200 player in college basketball, at a purely letter of the law basis, you're likely to have been professionalized sometime during the process leading up to your recruitment in college just through the benefits you've received and those kinds of things. So there are some problems that are baked in that are perhaps a little more prevalent because of its structure in college basketball, but I don't think you have to have too vivid of an imagination to see this showing up in other sports. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for Commissioner? COMMISSIONER BOWLSBY: One other thing I would like to make you aware of this morning: Our women's basketball tournament is coming back to Kansas City. It's been in Oklahoma City. It will be for two more years, but in 2020 the women's basketball tournament will come back to Kansas City and will be played the same weekend as the men's tournament. It was that way many times until I think it was last year in 2012. This will be a one-year agreement in Kansas City for the 2020 tournament. It's one year because we wanted the agreements to be co terminus with the men's agreement and our current contract runs through 2020 with the men's tournament. The venue will be Municipal Auditorium, as it was before. Many of you are aware that are close to Kansas City that they've done about $5 million worth of improvements on video boards and locker rooms and lower bowl seating and sound systems and that sort of thing. So we will be in Oklahoma City for two more years and then in Kansas City in 2020. We feel like there is synergy between men's and women's tournaments and the men's and women's crowds, so we are grateful for Kathy Nelson and her Sports Commission crew here. They've been very accommodating for us and we are looking forward to coming back with the women's tournament in 2020. Let me stop there and see if you have any questions about that. Okay. The last thing I would like to talk about and we announced it a week or so ago is that we have established a partnership with the Rhoden Fellows program. Many of you know Bill Rhoden and he is here today and I will ask him to come up and address your questions, but we did a state of college athletics forum on race and intercollegiate athletics and we have done six of these forums now and as you know we have taken on difficult topics and we have put people together that we knew disagreed with one another. Ill was part of the most recent one that we did in Atlanta and out of those -- out of that interaction we began talk about the Rhoden Fellows that he has started with ESPN and his role there. It is a program to provide opportunities and mentorship for young African American people who would like to get into the intercollegiate athletics. So today during the time that you're here you will have some opportunity to interface with Simone Benson from Morgan State Donovan Dooley from North Carolina A&T and from Isaiah Smalls who is from Morehouse College. They will be with us and they have been helping in the ramp-up to this event and we think it's a good opportunity for some young people to be involved in our program and Bill has embraced this and provided us the opportunity to serve in this way, and we think that not only will we get a lot of quality work out of these young people, but it will be a good ongoing way for them to be exposed to intercollegiate athletics at the highest level. So we are very excited that they will be with us today and throughout the year and leading up to the March conference tournament. Bill, if you will, let me invite you up and I will turn the program over to you. BILL RHODEN: Thank you very much, Bob. I see a lot of familiar faces out here. I'm normally for 40 or so years I've been doing this I've always been on this side. So this is kind of unique. I'm not going to take a lot of time. I know when you do these Media Day things you kinda want to get in and out, but this is very important. And let me give a lot of credit to Bob, because this really came about as a result of a -- some what of a pretty tough conversation that we were having. A typical forum that we talk about diversity and that kind of stuff. Basically, I said okay, wait a minute, timeout, just wait a minute! I've covered tons of national championship games and Final Fours and I said, you know, I've been doing these things for so long and the only time I see the heaviest concentration of young black people is on the court or on the field. As you go back in the press room, as you go to media operations, it gets whiter and whiter and whiter! It's been like this for years and we can look around now, you know? One of my missions is how do we get more young African Americans into this industry? Not just in journalism which obviously we need, but also in event operations, almost every other phase of this industry! Again, where we are mostly concentrated is on the field and on the court. So to Bob's credit, he stopped me almost in mid-sentence and he said you know, you're right! How do we begin to fix this? At that time, I had just started working with ESPN, as many of you know, I was with the New York Times for almost 35 years and he said, how do we start to fix this? We talked about it, had dinner, and I said, well, I'm working with the Rhoden Fellows, which is six students on a two-year internship, a fellowship through ESPN and the Undefeated. Basically they're going to be with me for two years. I'm going to show them what I know and what I don't know. Some of you have already met them and spoken with them. As a result of our conversations, we're here. Three of them are here. I don't know if you met Isaiah Smalls, raise your hand, from Morehouse College. Simone Benson from Morgan State, my alma mater, the best HBCU in the country. Donovan Dooley is from North Carolina A&T, arch rival, it's a miracle he's here! But he's a great kid! I guess if I have any message, it's that I know we talk about change, people say things are changing and you know what? Sometimes change only takes five minutes. It takes five minutes and that's about the time that it took Bob and I to talk and for him to realize you know what? There is a problem. It took maybe five to ten minutes to recognize a problem and let's deal with it. It's not really that complicated to solve these problems, if your heart is there and the will is there, it's not really that complicated. Again, I'm not here to make speeches and talks, I just want to thank Bob, the Big 12, we're going to be working together hopefully for a long time. We also hope that -- the Big 12 isn't alone, whether you have covered the Big Ten, SEC, it's the same thing in every single conference. This pictured is the way it is in every single conference. Black kids on the field, black kids on the court and that's pretty much it. We want to work to help change that. There are a lot of really bright and talented kids who I'm working with who are being exposed to different aspects of this immense industry. So, again, I want to thank all of you for being here, my colleagues. Again, thank Bob and the Big 12 especially, thank you for being so accommodating and Bob has been the go-between. Thank you very much. Thank you for helping me get the ketchup off my jacket. So thank you all and thanks for being here. THE MODERATOR: Any questions for Bill? BILL RHODEN: Do we have any answers? Okay. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, appreciate it. BILL RHODEN: I'm looking for the answers! FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|