Decision powered by greed

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

We are told there was hand-wringing about the amount of class time allegedly missed and concern about the proliferation of holiday basketball tournaments.

But the truth of the matter is those two factors had very little to do with the NCAA's Division I Management Council's decision yesterday to approve a proposal that will do away with the so-called "Hawai'i Exemption" after next basketball season.

This was about power and control, pure and simple. And, as is usually the case when the College Athletics Inc. powers-that-be convene, it was about money.

With one fourth of the conferences controlling 40 percent of the votes, guess whose interests carried the day?

The result, if the NCAA Board of Directors concurs in two weeks as expected, will eliminate the exempted basketball games as of August 2002, pulling the rug out from under not only the University of Hawai'i, but weakening the postseason opportunities for the so-called mid-majors and below.

Currently the Rainbow Classic, Maui Invitational, Big Island Invitational and others operate under an exemption. This permits teams to play three or more games in the tournaments while counting only one game against the NCAA maximum of 28, an incentive bonus of sorts.

The concept, first conceived by then-UH athletic director Henry "Hank" Vasconcellos in 1954 and passed a year later by the NCAA, was supposed to encourage competition for the University of Hawai'i by allowing visiting teams to offset their travel expenses with additional games.

It was such a good idea that a lot of others have piggybacked their way onto the Hawai'i Exemption, giving us the Great Alaska Shootout, Puerto Rico, Great Eight, Preseason NIT, etc.

This has made it possible for the smaller schools to play marquee teams on neutral courts where they have a fighting chance.

It means every once in a while the underdogs pull off the kind of upset that enhances their Ratings Percentage Index.

Come NCAA Tournament selection time, this has made them competition for the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-place teams of the power conferences, unwanted rivals for the lucrative paydays that come with each tournament appearance.

Which is why the basketball power conferences — the Atlantic Coast, Pac-10, Big Ten, Big Eight, Southeast, Big East and Conference USA — who each have three votes on the Management Council (the Western Athletic Conference has 1.5) voted heavily to do away with the exemption, 27.5-21.5.

And why a WAC-sponsored amendment to exempt the venerable Rainbow Classic from the restrictions met a 24.5-23.5 defeat.

This was about the power conferences exerting control and protecting their wallets, nothing more.