2nd part of JP's 3 part Zach Braziller interview
.................JPP: You also wrote a terrific column about the upheaval in college basketball with the transfer portal. Where do you see the college hoops landscape in four or five years with not only the transfer market growing so huge, but the NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) becoming a thing soon?
ZB: The transfer thing is interesting, because they came out with the official rules (last week), which I think surprised a lot of people. Now grad transfers, if they’ve transferred once already, they need a waiver. Let's see what that’s like. Are they (the NCAA) just going to give everyone waivers? I have no idea. So that’s kind of interesting. Everybody gets their one free transfer but then it gets kind of tricky.
This year, you had seniors getting their free years, so you added that to the transfer market. So this year, the numbers have gone crazy, but I do think with some of these guardrails that they have imposed, it will change things.
And as for the NIL, I'm fascinated to see how it’s going to go. It just seems like such a messy thing. They haven’t come up with anything yet. I would hope that some of these kids would start to be able to make money off of their names. If (St. John’s star) Julian Champagnie’s face is on a bus or a billboard, he should be able to benefit from some of that.
JPP: I agree with that.
ZB: If Posh Alexander’s face is on a billboard next to the Garden because St. John’s is finally a Top 25 team, he should be able to get something for that. If you want to say they don’t get the money until they’re out of college, fine, but they’ve got to do something because to me, it’s just absurd. And it’s taken so long that some people will just say, it’s college, it’s just amateurs. That to me is such a crock. Just because something has been unfair for so long doesn’t mean it shouldn’t change.
.................JPP: You also wrote a terrific column about the upheaval in college basketball with the transfer portal. Where do you see the college hoops landscape in four or five years with not only the transfer market growing so huge, but the NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) becoming a thing soon?
ZB: The transfer thing is interesting, because they came out with the official rules (last week), which I think surprised a lot of people. Now grad transfers, if they’ve transferred once already, they need a waiver. Let's see what that’s like. Are they (the NCAA) just going to give everyone waivers? I have no idea. So that’s kind of interesting. Everybody gets their one free transfer but then it gets kind of tricky.
This year, you had seniors getting their free years, so you added that to the transfer market. So this year, the numbers have gone crazy, but I do think with some of these guardrails that they have imposed, it will change things.
And as for the NIL, I'm fascinated to see how it’s going to go. It just seems like such a messy thing. They haven’t come up with anything yet. I would hope that some of these kids would start to be able to make money off of their names. If (St. John’s star) Julian Champagnie’s face is on a bus or a billboard, he should be able to benefit from some of that.
JPP: I agree with that.
ZB: If Posh Alexander’s face is on a billboard next to the Garden because St. John’s is finally a Top 25 team, he should be able to get something for that. If you want to say they don’t get the money until they’re out of college, fine, but they’ve got to do something because to me, it’s just absurd. And it’s taken so long that some people will just say, it’s college, it’s just amateurs. That to me is such a crock. Just because something has been unfair for so long doesn’t mean it shouldn’t change.
