NCAA putting a stop to package deals?

News came out yesterday that the NCAA had finally taken steps to end a practice known throughout the college hoops world as "package deals". Now teams cannot hire the coach or a family member of a recruit within two year prior too or after that player enrolls at the university.

If you're unfamiliar with what a package deal is, its simple really. A coach recruiting a player offers a job to a family member, a coach, a trainer, or any member of that player's inner circle in an attempt to get that player to come to his school.

Its been far from an uncommon occurance. Michael Beasley decommitted from Charlotte once Bobby Huggins hired former Charlotte assistant Dalonte Hill to his staff at Kansas State. Mario Chalmers' father was hired at Kansas, leaving the school once the younger Chalmers left for the NBA. Milt Wagner got a job at Memphis riding the coattails of his son DaJuan. And most recently, Scott Drew hired John Wall's AAU coach in a thinly veiled attempt to bring the point guard to Baylor while Rick Pitino hired one of Marquise Teague's coaches, a stud recruit in the class of '11 and the younger brother of former Wake Forest standout Jeff Teague.

While I applaud the NCAA for taking a step in the right direction, one thing that must be kept in mind is that every rule has a loophole, and you can rest assured that soon enough, college coaches are going find it. This rule is, in itself, a response to a loophole that was being exploited.

The other issue is when a program is looking to hire someone specifically for their recruiting connections, and not necessarily in an attempt to land one specific player.

So much of a coaches success is involved in how well they can recruit, and a huge part of recruiting is networking; knowing the people that can get you close to the best recruits in a certain area. Many times, those people are the best coaches in the area - be it high school, AAU, someone running a gym. And if you are the best coach in an area, there's a high likelihood you've coached some of the best players in that area.

If a school like, let's say, Maryland wants to shore up how well they recruit the fertile I-95 corridor and DC Metro area, and they hire a high school coach from PG County that has been around the game in that area for 20 years, will the Terps commit a violation if they land a kid from that coaches former team? Former hometown? Former conference?

The situation will be much more dicey for smaller schools that can't recruit nationally like Maryland can.

Hopefully the NCAA will be able to recognize a real package deal and a real hire who happens to have the right connections.