COLUMN: Evolution of college hoops about to get crazy
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MORGANTOWN — Ron Hunter is entering his eighth season as the men's basketball coach at Tulane, but for the hoops junkies out there, most will remember him as the former Georgia State head coach who fell off his rolling chair in the 2015 NCAA tournament, just as his son hit a game-winning 3-pointer against Baylor.
WVU head coach Ross Hodge tells a different story about Hunter these days, one that comes with the be-careful-what-you-wish-for cautionary moral.
As it stands today, college basketball coaches are enjoying an almost unlimited amount of time in the offseason working and practicing with their players.
Hodge, who is attempting to carve out his second WVU team with a roster of 11 new faces, was able to spend the majority of July in full-fledged daily practices. When the fall semester begins on Aug. 18, Hodge will get workouts going again until the official start of preseason practice begins in September.
In short, that is an entirely different amount of coach-to-player access than a decade ago, when coaches could only workout players for two hours per week over the summer and in the fall prior to the opening of preseason practice.
It was one of the reasons back in the day that teams went on a summer foreign trip, so a coach could be permitted to have 10 days of practice in the summer. Now, coaches have those 10 days and then some and don't have to travel anywhere.
OK, back to Hunter, who also serves as the chairperson, of sorts, for the American Athletic Conference hoops coaches. As the rules for more access began to change, it was Hunter, who has 32 seasons as a head coach under his belt, who saw the sport heading in the wrong direction.
"He would tell us, 'I'm not going to do this much longer, but you younger guys, you're crazy if this is what you want,' " Hodge told the story. "You need to find ways to have an offseason."
It is now 2026, and the funding of college athletics has reached levels some of us would have never imagined.
Universities of higher learning now have their own official brands of bourbons and whiskeys, and have sponsorships with mulch companies, banks and energy corporations. All of those dollars, for the most part, go into funding revenue sharing and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) initiatives for college athletes.
This is where college basketball is heading: Not too many more offseasons will pass before summer practice time turns into summer competition, where arenas will open, tickets will be sold and beer and popcorn will be consumed.
Because, as a collective body of college athletics, everyone will have a role to play in terms of raising money to pay college athletes.
A slight change this year has already given teams a third preseason option before the season starts in November. Teams used to get two, whether that was live exhibitions, closed-door scrimmages or a combination.
WVU will travel to Maryland on Oct. 17 for a live exhibition. Hodge said they are still evaluating how to handle the other two options, but at least one of them will likely be an exhibition game in Morgantown.
The NCAA is currently evaluating potential rule changes to allow up to two domestic summer exhibition games, meaning live games in late June or July.
You know where this is heading. Those games will be sold to ESPN, Fox and whoever else. ESPN+ will be your new home to watch Kansas host St. John's and Duke host Northwestern in July.
On the surface, it all sounds great, but as Hunter warned, "you younger guys, you're crazy if this is what you want."
"Games in the summer could be positive for a lot of reasons, but I don't know," Hodge said, as his thoughts began to race over the possibilities. "It's a crazy time in athletics. Someone could get their butt kicked over the summer, and maybe the athletic director would be like maybe we need to make a coaching change before the season has even started."
When there is a scoreboard turned on, you can bet there are also major knee-jerk reactions and evaluations turned on with it. When there is as much money on the line as there is now in college athletics, drastic and untraditional decisions will be made if you give someone that opportunity.
"You could think that wouldn't be a part of it, but it's a reality," Hodge said. "You think you're playing a meaningless exhibition game against whoever in June, when you've only had your team for a week and a half, but as we know, if there is a scoreboard, someone is paying attention."
The world of college hoops will change so dramatically, it would likely knock Hunter right out of his seat again for all of the wrong reasons.