College basketball in the United States is at a crossroads. The flood of “one and done” star athletes like O.J. Mayo (and their entourages) is both a blessing and a curse for college programs. And you can’t throw a rock without hitting a coach committing a recruiting violation. Something must be done. Changes must be made.

The role money plays at the college level is to the detriment of the sport. NBA players get paid in something resembling a meritocracy, but officially unpaid college athletes are only allowed to spend a limited number of hours on basketball, because they have to give the appearance of being students.

Make being a complete basketball player their only academic concern, maybe with a handful of elective courses. It takes brainpower and teamwork as well as physical ability to play basketball. These are the skills the NCAA trumpets in their student-athletes – let’s see it taken seriously.

Jack Nicholson with Michael Jordan

The most famous fan of the Los Angeles Lakers has also been spotted cheering the UCLA Bruins to victory. Maybe he’s doing some scouting.

If Jack Nicholson decides that the acting life is no longer for him, he’d make one hell of a college basketball coach. Really. He developed his appreciation for the game while growing up in the 1950s, playing pick-up ball on the Jersey Shore. He played guard for one year at high school before he was kicked out of sports after taking a baseball bat to an opponent’s locker room.

You won’t find many college kids willing to question Jack’s authority. Nicholson is highly intelligent, and his alpha male persona is ideally suited for coaching at the college level. But it’s the 30-plus years he’s spent sitting three seats away from the visiting bench at Lakers games that has given Nicholson the experience he needs to be successful.

While students head to the beach, for the coaches it’s no rest for the wicked.

This is quiet time for college basketball. But not really; while the sport is in dry-dock, the programs themselves are constantly busy.

Coaches spent April on recruiting junkets, and those junkets are even more important now that the college ranks are being flooded with “one-and-done” players bound for the NBA after their mandated freshman campaigns.

Other coaches are still getting acquainted with their new employers. Tom Crean has a ton of work to do cleaning up the mess Kelvin Sampson left behind in Indiana. Buzz Williams replaces Crean at Marquette after serving one year as his assistant; he’ll also be a very busy man this summer.

Change doesn’t end with the coaches and players, either. Duke needs a new athletic director after Joe Alleva left for LSU. Dr. Chris Kennedy is handling things on an interim basis. This is a very important development that requires attention, as the ACC as a whole diverts its attention toward developing some quality college football programs.