The NCAA may delay the offering of scholarships

With the college basketball season dead and gone, and the NBA Draft now a thing of the past, expect your college hoops news feeds to slow down quite a bit. Now, instead of prospect previews and draft diary's and season recaps, expect quite a bit of talk about the rules and structure of the sport.

Take, for example, this: the Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet, which is a committee reviewing recruiting conduct, has recommended that a rule be put into place that would make it illegal for coaches to offer a scholarship to a player until the summer after their junior season.

In theory, this is a great rule. I think we have all heard the stories of head coaches recruiting and offering scholarships to kids that have yet to decide on a high school. Giving these kids and their families some time to learn the recruiting process, figure out what they are looking for in a school/team/coach, and, you know, take a high school class before allowing them to be swamped by coaches, agents, runners, and the like is a good thing.

That said, is the NCAA really going to be able to police this?

There is a cap on how much coaches can call recruits, but does everyone abide by this rule? Illegal benefits are, well, illegal, but players still get them, right? Who's to say that this measure will actually prevent coaches from offering recruits scholarships?

That, however, isn't the point.

The point is that the NCAA is starting to take notice. They are starting to think about ways to change the perpetually corrupt college basketball recruiting process. There may be no profession as adaptable as college basketball coaches. Regardless of the rules put into place, these guys find the loophole that allows them to, essentially, get away with cheating.

And while that likely won't change, isn't it a good sign that an effort is being made by the NCAA?