Izzo on Failings of College Basketball and NBA: 'We've Got to Do a Better Job'

It was a rough year for men's college basketball.

Off-court drama at blue-blood programs such as Syracuse, North Carolina and Kansas commanded headlines for months. National attendance fell for the seventh straight season, and according to The Associated Press, at 67.6 points per game, scoring was at its second-lowest mark since the early 1950s—before the advent of the shot clock.

Whether it came from fans on Internet message boards, talking heads on the radio or even coaches and players themselves, criticism of the sport intensified all the way up to the NCAA tournament, when Connecticut women's coach Geno Auriemma chimed in by calling the men's game "a joke."

The loudest voice, however, surfaced two days after the NCAA title game when Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told ESPNDallas.com's Tim MacMahon men's college basketball was "uglier than ugly" and "worse than high school."

Cuban ripped everything from the style of play to the officiating to the various types of balls used in different leagues. His bottom line: College basketball isn't preparing its players for the NBA, and because of that, the league is suffering.

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Cuban's comments quickly made their way across the college landscape and into the hands of coaches such as Michigan State's Tom Izzo, whose squad advanced to the Final Four earlier this month.

Izzo's response?

"I agree with a lot of Mark's comments," Izzo told Bleacher Report. "But instead of talking about it [in the press], why can't we all sit down and meet? That way, we could talk and hash things out and see what benefits everyone the most.

"If the NBA and colleges got together, it would be a better world."

Here are some of Izzo's other remarks—many of them in response to Cuban—on the state of the college game.

Izzo on One-and-Done

James Crisp/Associated Press

I don't know how many NBA guys actually like these guys coming out early when they're not ready. I don't think many of them do. I just think it's because of the way the rules are, they have no choice.

I think if we got together and quit looking about what's best for the NBA and what's best for college and looked at what's best for the kid, it would help all parties. Is the kid learning [basketball] at a good rate, or is he just kind of there to put up numbers so he can leave at the end of the year? The way it is now is hard on everybody. There is only so few that really make it.

Look at the percentages. How many are ready to go out of high school? Two or three guys? After the first year of college, you maybe have 15-20 guys [freshmen] get drafted. But how many of them are really ready? Most of them end up in the [NBA] D-League.

We've got to do a better job of working together with the NBA to come up with what is best for basketball and what is best for these kids. How can we make them more ready?

In education, we're trying to make a guy ready for his next 50 years of life. So [in basketball], we need educate them, too. If the ultimate goal of all these players is to turn pro, how can we do a better job?

I'd love to sit down for Mark Cuban and hear what he thinks.

On Educating College Players

I really think that we could do in basketball what our school systems are doing in life, and that's help the education process. I wouldn't be a good head coach if I hadn't have been an assistant or a GA [graduate assistant]. I went through the system. But we're asking these kids to skip the system and just be great.

Nati Harnik/Associated Press

You hope he can do it. There's always a couple. But look at how many kids are going early and not being successful. It's easy for the NBA to blame colleges. But a lot of colleges are blaming the NBA for taking our players.

You hear college coaches complaining that they're having to teach fundamentals to their freshmen because of the way they were brought up? Well, it's the same thing in the NBA. They're getting them after spending eight months with us. We couldn't have taught them everything.

In those cases, it's the NBA program that's got to do a better job when they get them. We didn't have enough time.

On Changing the Rules

If you were truly looking out for the kid first, there are certain rules you would change: I'm sick of the "right to work" campaign [asserting college players shouldn't be prevented from playing in the NBA]. Why isn't there a right to work in football? Why can baseball have its rule?

With the way the draft is now, are we really helping a lot of kids, or are we helping one or two? There are guys coming out this year that I can't believe. I mean, I'm thinking about coming out. I'd have just as good of a chance of getting drafted.

On the Pressure for Collegians to Go Pro

Danny Moloshok/Associated Press/Associated Press

Gary Harris [who left Michigan State after his sophomore year last spring]...I think part of the reason he came out is because of the thought that, if you go past your sophomore year, you've got egg on you. You're a failure. How messed up is that?

You know who has caused that? The NBA has caused that. They draft all on potential. If I was the NBA, I'd want to draft on performance. Not on what you think someone could be.

How does the NBA factor into a player's psyche during college?

I just think that there's tremendous pressure on these kids. I just wonder if they have any fun.

I just want to say, "You were there one year. Did you really enjoy it? Where every jump shot you take, you think, 'Oh man, did I just fall from the 10th to the 20th pick because I missed it?'"

I feel bad for the kids. But I say that, and everyone thinks we're trying to save our own ass.

Those guys are missing their best years [when they leave too early]. [Former Michigan State star] Steve Smith said something to us when he came back and talked to kids who were thinking about coming out early. He said it's great when you're making all that money, but midway through your first year, it feels like a job. When you're in college, it's technically not a job. It's the last time you get to enjoy things. Once you get out, the next 40 years, you're working with pressure on you.

On What Cuban Said About NCAA Officiating

I agreed with most of it, especially the part about the [lack of] consistency with the rules. I don't think there's much consistency. There's no accountability. We don't even play with the same balls in each league. It does create problems. Those are valid and good points.

There are so many fouls called now that some of the best players are sitting on the bench. They've got to find a happy medium, and you've got to have consistency. You can't be playing in the Big Ten one way and the ACC the other way. You get into the tournament, and now good people are on the bench. Now scoring isn't as good because your best players are on the bench.

Whatever the NBA has, I want. I think the wider lane would be better. I think the [college] three-point shot is too close. I want it longer. The 35-second clock is too long.

We're the ones [screwing] it up. Not the kids. They're just doing what the rules say. Let's all get together and say, "How can we benefit all parties?" You and me and the kids. There would be a lot less problems, a lot less complaining.

Jason King covers college basketball for Bleacher Report.