The second session of summer school at San Diego State begins Tuesday, which is when the men\u2019s basketball team typically gathers and begins workouts ahead of the new season.<\/p>\n
There will be players in the JAM Center practice facility. They just might not be playing much five-on-five.<\/p>\n
Seven healthy scholarship players are here. Two others, Elzie Harrington and Nick Anderson, are rehabbing spring surgeries. And all three European pros remain in NCAA limbo, along with hundreds of others across the country.<\/p>\n
Best-case scenario: The Euros get here in a couple weeks.<\/p>\n
Worst-case scenario: Some or all of them don\u2019t get here at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know me, I\u2019ve dealt with it all,\u201d Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said. \u201cI can\u2019t change any of it. Maybe they\u2019re going to try to regulate it a little more, but I don\u2019t have any control over it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this is not something I knew before the process started. No one did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dutcher is referring to the NCAA guidance that hit inboxes on May 8 and still hasn\u2019t been fully explained or resolved. The memo seemed to take a harder line on the recent influx of European pros, indicating the NCAA won\u2019t clear those who \u201centered an agreement with, competed on or received compensation from a team that participates in a league with minimum compensation that exceeds actual and necessary expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dutcher takes issue less with the content than the timing.<\/p>\n
They landed Croatian wing Luka Skoric on April 27<\/a> and Italian guard David Torresani on May 4<\/a>. Italian post Luca Vincini wasn\u2019t formally announced until May 12, but he had privately agreed to terms with SDSU two weeks earlier and didn\u2019t go public until his season ended.<\/p>\n \u201cYou add pieces, and then they hit you with legislation, it\u2019s kind of tough,\u201d Dutcher said. \u201cMaybe they\u2019re setting themselves up for a lawsuit anyway, because there are guys who were going to be playing and already on rosters.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t believe they\u2019re going to get rid of those guys like at Illinois or Arizona. I can\u2019t believe they\u2019re going to say they can\u2019t play this year, this late. It seems like they needed to take a stand earlier. Or do it for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n The question becomes how narrowly the NCAA defines \u201cactual and necessary expenses,\u201d which technically has always been there but wasn\u2019t strictly enforced.<\/p>\n \u201cThe NCAA also identified several international leagues in which participation by a prospect is likely to result in violations of NCAA rules and a loss of eligibility,\u201d an NCAA statement to Sports Illustrated said<\/a>, without specifying them. \u201cThe Association is modernizing the rule book in several ways to ensure college sports are played by college athletes and not used as a fallback for professional athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n The EuroLeague, the international competition with the continent\u2019s biggest clubs, has a minimum salary of $50,000 and most players make significantly more, sometimes well into seven figures. The same goes for Liga ACB, the Spanish first division widely considered the best domestic league outside the NBA, as well as top leagues in France and Italy.<\/p>\n Age could be a factor as well. Sports Illustrated reported that eligibility will be evaluated on a \u201ccase-by-case basis\u201d and consider how long a player received a salary worth more than actual and necessary expenses.<\/p>\n Skoric played in Croatia, which generally is not among the highest-paying leagues in Europe. But he\u2019s 23 and turns 24 during the college basketball season.<\/p>\n Torresani turned 21 last month but he played in Italy\u2019s respected Lega Basket Serie A for four years.<\/p>\n