LAS VEGAS (AP) Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott would like the NBA to change its rules to prevent players from leaving after one season of college basketball.
Speaking before Saturday's Pac-12 championship game, Scott ran through a myriad of tops, including the so-called one-and-done rule, NCAA reform and the conference's stalemate with DirecTV.
Scott said the NBA's one-and-done rule, which was put in place to prevent players from skipping college to go directly to the pros, prevents student-athletes from having an education and experience college athletics.
He would like to see the NBA adopt a rule similar to baseball, allowing players to jump directly to the NBA from high school, but requiring them to stay in school if they decide to go that route.
Scott said he would like there to be an age limit of 21 before going to pro, but was pleased that new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said he would like it to be 20.
''Our feeling is that the one-and-done phenomenon is very detrimental to the essential academic mission of our universities,'' Scott said. ''The phenomenon is short changing the vast majority of our student-athletes who receive scholarships to Pac-12 universities as a huge transformative opportunity in their life.''
In terms of the NCAA, Scott said he would like to see its governance structure so student-athletes can receive better benefits, including the full cost of attendance.
''This is something that people from many quarters, both inside and outside the large conferences have been calling for with increased intensity, yet it hasn't been able to be accomplished through the current governing structure of the NCAA,'' he said. ''That's why we need reform of the governance structure of the NCAA, to allow the high-resource conferences to have more flexibility in deciding to do a better job of supporting student-athletes where they'd like.''
As for the DirecTV deal, there's still no progress.
When the Pac-12 launched its own network in 2012, it was able to land contracts with most of the major television carriers. The Pac-12 and DirecTV were far apart in initial negotiations and have not made up much ground since.
''Unfortunately, I know it's a great source of frustration for fans and we are sympathetic to that, especially this week when we've had, I believe, eight of the 11 games (in the conference tournament) on the Pac-12 Network, and there is so much interest in what's going on.''
Scott also said the network is looking at its TV schedule for football and basketball games. Because the conference has its own network and contracts with multiple networks, the games often start late at night and, in the case of basketball, spread out with wide gaps between games.
