Basketball issues

Mike Brey, head men's basketball coach
University of Notre Dame
USA Today

Discussing a reduction in team scoring average through the middle of the 2003-04 season:

"The game is too physical in the post. Maybe we start the season enforcing it, but it wanes. I don't think we consistently stay with that and clean up rough play. When you get into the dog days of mid-January to March, it can get really rough. You see 52-50, and there are a lot of bodies flying all over the place. Heated contests in league play get really physical. Officials get put in difficult positions, too."

Gary Williams, head men's basketball coach
University of Maryland, College park
Raleigh News and Observer

Discussing an expanded bracket in Division I men's basketball:

"With a 64-team field, you can have some problems. There are problems for the mid-majors who have more than one good team, there are problems for the power conferences that might have five, six or seven teams that deserve to go. So, I think it wouldn't be wrong to take another look at the NCAA tournament. You go to 128 teams, you knock one game off of the regular season, and you're down to 64 very quickly, which seems to be the magic number for the people who are interested in that."

Division I media guides

Dennis Dodd, columnist
CBS.SportsLine.com

"Recent proposed legislation seeks to eliminate one of the few sources of good news in college football. Proposal No. 03-88 seeks to eliminate the media guide. As soon as April, the (Division I Board of Directors) might eliminate the physical form of the reference materials that -- get this -- portray their coaches and players in the best possible light.

"While you might not care that Mr. College Football Writer might lose the Swiss Army Knife of his work tools, you should care about the rationale of the legislation: cost-containment.

"The Wal-Marting of college sports has been an NCAA drumbeat since the old Presidents Commission was formed in the 1980s. Except that few in the reform movement want to admit the obvious -- college athletics are an entrepreneurial, profit-driven enterprise trying to govern itself on a false platform consisting of education, morals and ethics. The conflict results time after time in blinding hypocrisy.

"A college recruit can order market-price shellfish, fly on a private jet, get his own personalized jersey, yeah, even have sex on his visit if he tries hard enough, but the media guide is the villain.

"The media guide comes the closest to presenting an organized, smiling face on a sport that can't help but continually mess itself."

Sportsmanship

Kermit Hall, president
Utah State University
USA Today

Discussing his belief that public universities have not only a right to eject students who chant obscenities but a responsibility to do so in consideration of others' rights to watch a game in a safe setting:

"I think that's legally justifiable and sustainable. There are two interesting and controlling factors. First, the process of admission to an athletics event is a license, which can be revoked. Second, there is an exemption to the First Amendment for 'fighting words' used to try to incite or intimidate."