John went so in-depth with his answers that JP had to break this up into 3 parts.
Part 1 focuses on the NIL and Shaheen Holloway......
By JP Pelzman
Welcome to part 1 of a three-part interview with veteran FOX, FS1 and Big East Digital commentator John Fanta, who also can be heard on the Field of 68 podcast. In this installment, he talks about why he believes new coach Shaheen Holloway will succeed at Seton Hall, and also gives his thoughts on why the sport of college basketball will survive both the NIL and the rampant transfers.
J.P. Pelzman: John, I’ve seen some of your comments on the NIL and you have an interesting take on how it’s actually keeping players around and thus improving the sport.
John Fanta: Everyone said that the NIL was going to kill, or at least greatly affect the sport. I would argue that the NIL is helping the sport. And how ironic that Name Image and Likeness, the very thing that the NCAA was against for so long, is now helping the sport.
Now let me make one thing clear. I don’t think the transfer portal is a good thing for college basketball. But I also don’t think the sky is falling because of the transfer portal. I think the sport has to adjust to its current climate and the current climate is chaos. Everyone has said this and I'm on that boat too.
But you’re telling me because a kid has an opportunity to go to another program, and play right away, that what’s killing the sport? No. It's on you as a coach and a staff. You recruit these players. You bring them in. It's on you to make all the pieces work. It's funny. The best programs in the country have some sort of degree of roster continuity whether they’re portaling or NIL or what-have-you. When you look across America, Kansas won the national championship this past season with a four-year player in Ochai Agbaji, a veteran player who got better throughout his career. They won the national championship with David McCormack, a veteran player who stayed the course.
And I get it, I get it, Seton Hall fans, or a Hofstra fan or a St. John’s fan who says, ‘We’re not Kansas. We’re not Duke. We're not Kentucky.’ Yeah, but in your own way, you’ve been able to keep players around and as a result they get better and you’re on the map. Some of Seton Hall’s best teams over the last 10 years have been great because they’ve had roster continuity and I would say they have a level of continuity heading into this season with some of the pieces. They have some new pieces, there’s no question about it, but it’s not like Kadary Richmond and Tyrese Samuel saw the coaching change and said, ‘That’s it, can’t do it. We're out of here. Goodbye.’ My point is the best teams have continuity. That continuity is harder to achieve. But do I think that now that a kid has a right to transfer because he’s not playing that it’s killing the sport? No.
Recruiting has been happening in layup lines long before now. It's always been hard to hang on to a player, but the best coaches are going to hang on to the kids they want to hang on to.
And I would argue, one thing that never gets talked about with the portal--Now a coach doesn’t feel that bad when he says to a player, ‘I don’t have a roster spot for you’ or ‘I don’t have a spot for you to be a starter or a sixth or seventh man on my team. It's just not going to happen. You can stay here on scholarship. I can’t kick you out. But I'm not going to be able to create the role we talked about when I recruited you because you’re not good enough.’
A coach is not as prone to avoid that conversation. A coach can now say to player, ‘I'll help you transfer. And oh, by the way, when I help you transfer, you won’t have to sit out.’
There's two sides to the portal, there’s a kid who’s unhappy with the coach, and there’s the side that doesn’t really get reported on, there’s a coach saying, you’re not good enough to play for me. … So, to say the sky is falling is not true. College basketball--March Madness, the part of the sport that we love, it’s not going to get killed. In fact, the return of Oscar Tshiebwe (Kentucky), Armanda Bacot (North Carolina) and others shows that college basketball can be a destination and I think it will continue to be. Only now, that destination has more routes and more avenues that people can take.
College basketball has survived so many sky-is-falling moments, such as when a LeBron James goes straight from high school to the NBA or when you have players going from high school to the G League Ignite and then to the NBA and people say, oh it’s bad for college basketball. College basketball has survived so much you-know-what and it will survive this. But like any change in our society, it takes time and nobody likes change. People like the status quo. A student-athlete should have the same opportunity that someone who is unhappy at their job has--leave. But guess what, you have to live with the consequences of that. But now you have the power to do that.
JPP: And I guess the example you mentioned--Tshiebwe--is that the perfect example of how the NIL can help college basketball. He is going to make way more money by staying at Kentucky than by turning pro because he really isn’t an NBA prospect.
JF: So, I'm working on this story and I’ll share a little bit of it with you. Tshiebwe is a guy who wasn’t going to be a great NBA player and likely is never going to be, so he is going to be able to make more money by being in college than he ever will by being a professional.
There are some guys are who just great college players, and Tshiebwe is one of them. And he is going to make $2 million this season, and that’s (a lot more) than he was going to make lacing them up in the G League every night. Or he could make some money playing internationally, but he won’t have the same brand value he has at Kentucky. And what happens if he leads Kentucky to a national title? He could turn that $2 million into $5 or $6 million.
And another guy to think about is Trayce Jackson-Davis of Indiana.
He was set to go the NBA Draft. His parents wanted him to. The week of the Combine, he gets COVID. He can’t play. His agent is talking to him, everyone is talking to him. Trayce says, “I didn’t get a chance to prove myself.”
He felt he could show people he was a first-round pick. He didn’t get that chance because of COVID. Not all hope was lost. He knows he can go back to college. He knows he can make at least $500,000 this year. So you know what he said? ‘I'll go back to college.
I'll go develop my game. I'll go try to be a first-round pick.’
NIL is helping college basketball. The market is crazy. The market has to level off. I'm not a financial expert. I got a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Seton Hall. I took one math class to get that degree. (Laughs) I'm not numbers-savvy. I don’t know how this all works. I know there’s stuff going on behind closed doors. We all know. But at least giving a kid a chance to make money with Name, Image and Likeness keeps him in college basketball. And isn’t that good for that college basketball team’s coach, program and fan base? I'd say so.
Part 1 focuses on the NIL and Shaheen Holloway......
By JP Pelzman
Welcome to part 1 of a three-part interview with veteran FOX, FS1 and Big East Digital commentator John Fanta, who also can be heard on the Field of 68 podcast. In this installment, he talks about why he believes new coach Shaheen Holloway will succeed at Seton Hall, and also gives his thoughts on why the sport of college basketball will survive both the NIL and the rampant transfers.
J.P. Pelzman: John, I’ve seen some of your comments on the NIL and you have an interesting take on how it’s actually keeping players around and thus improving the sport.
John Fanta: Everyone said that the NIL was going to kill, or at least greatly affect the sport. I would argue that the NIL is helping the sport. And how ironic that Name Image and Likeness, the very thing that the NCAA was against for so long, is now helping the sport.
Now let me make one thing clear. I don’t think the transfer portal is a good thing for college basketball. But I also don’t think the sky is falling because of the transfer portal. I think the sport has to adjust to its current climate and the current climate is chaos. Everyone has said this and I'm on that boat too.
But you’re telling me because a kid has an opportunity to go to another program, and play right away, that what’s killing the sport? No. It's on you as a coach and a staff. You recruit these players. You bring them in. It's on you to make all the pieces work. It's funny. The best programs in the country have some sort of degree of roster continuity whether they’re portaling or NIL or what-have-you. When you look across America, Kansas won the national championship this past season with a four-year player in Ochai Agbaji, a veteran player who got better throughout his career. They won the national championship with David McCormack, a veteran player who stayed the course.
And I get it, I get it, Seton Hall fans, or a Hofstra fan or a St. John’s fan who says, ‘We’re not Kansas. We’re not Duke. We're not Kentucky.’ Yeah, but in your own way, you’ve been able to keep players around and as a result they get better and you’re on the map. Some of Seton Hall’s best teams over the last 10 years have been great because they’ve had roster continuity and I would say they have a level of continuity heading into this season with some of the pieces. They have some new pieces, there’s no question about it, but it’s not like Kadary Richmond and Tyrese Samuel saw the coaching change and said, ‘That’s it, can’t do it. We're out of here. Goodbye.’ My point is the best teams have continuity. That continuity is harder to achieve. But do I think that now that a kid has a right to transfer because he’s not playing that it’s killing the sport? No.
Recruiting has been happening in layup lines long before now. It's always been hard to hang on to a player, but the best coaches are going to hang on to the kids they want to hang on to.
And I would argue, one thing that never gets talked about with the portal--Now a coach doesn’t feel that bad when he says to a player, ‘I don’t have a roster spot for you’ or ‘I don’t have a spot for you to be a starter or a sixth or seventh man on my team. It's just not going to happen. You can stay here on scholarship. I can’t kick you out. But I'm not going to be able to create the role we talked about when I recruited you because you’re not good enough.’
A coach is not as prone to avoid that conversation. A coach can now say to player, ‘I'll help you transfer. And oh, by the way, when I help you transfer, you won’t have to sit out.’
There's two sides to the portal, there’s a kid who’s unhappy with the coach, and there’s the side that doesn’t really get reported on, there’s a coach saying, you’re not good enough to play for me. … So, to say the sky is falling is not true. College basketball--March Madness, the part of the sport that we love, it’s not going to get killed. In fact, the return of Oscar Tshiebwe (Kentucky), Armanda Bacot (North Carolina) and others shows that college basketball can be a destination and I think it will continue to be. Only now, that destination has more routes and more avenues that people can take.
College basketball has survived so many sky-is-falling moments, such as when a LeBron James goes straight from high school to the NBA or when you have players going from high school to the G League Ignite and then to the NBA and people say, oh it’s bad for college basketball. College basketball has survived so much you-know-what and it will survive this. But like any change in our society, it takes time and nobody likes change. People like the status quo. A student-athlete should have the same opportunity that someone who is unhappy at their job has--leave. But guess what, you have to live with the consequences of that. But now you have the power to do that.
JPP: And I guess the example you mentioned--Tshiebwe--is that the perfect example of how the NIL can help college basketball. He is going to make way more money by staying at Kentucky than by turning pro because he really isn’t an NBA prospect.
JF: So, I'm working on this story and I’ll share a little bit of it with you. Tshiebwe is a guy who wasn’t going to be a great NBA player and likely is never going to be, so he is going to be able to make more money by being in college than he ever will by being a professional.
There are some guys are who just great college players, and Tshiebwe is one of them. And he is going to make $2 million this season, and that’s (a lot more) than he was going to make lacing them up in the G League every night. Or he could make some money playing internationally, but he won’t have the same brand value he has at Kentucky. And what happens if he leads Kentucky to a national title? He could turn that $2 million into $5 or $6 million.
And another guy to think about is Trayce Jackson-Davis of Indiana.
He was set to go the NBA Draft. His parents wanted him to. The week of the Combine, he gets COVID. He can’t play. His agent is talking to him, everyone is talking to him. Trayce says, “I didn’t get a chance to prove myself.”
He felt he could show people he was a first-round pick. He didn’t get that chance because of COVID. Not all hope was lost. He knows he can go back to college. He knows he can make at least $500,000 this year. So you know what he said? ‘I'll go back to college.
I'll go develop my game. I'll go try to be a first-round pick.’
NIL is helping college basketball. The market is crazy. The market has to level off. I'm not a financial expert. I got a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Seton Hall. I took one math class to get that degree. (Laughs) I'm not numbers-savvy. I don’t know how this all works. I know there’s stuff going on behind closed doors. We all know. But at least giving a kid a chance to make money with Name, Image and Likeness keeps him in college basketball. And isn’t that good for that college basketball team’s coach, program and fan base? I'd say so.
