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Rick Pitino defends RJ Luis’ controversial decision to remain in 2025 NBA Draft

RJ Luis’ decision to remain in the NBA Draft instead of returning to college basketball to cash in on a major payday in the transfer portal was the most controversial choice a player made this spring. Most people in Luis’ shoes, a projected fringe second round selection, would have easily opted to play another season […]

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RJ Luis’ decision to remain in the NBA Draft instead of returning to college basketball to cash in on a major payday in the transfer portal was the most controversial choice a player made this spring.

Most people in Luis’ shoes, a projected fringe second round selection, would have easily opted to play another season of college basketball, while getting a major NIL package, but the Big East Player of the Year remained true to his word when he said he was not thinking about withdrawing from the draft.

Despite the criticism of his choice, Rick Pitino defended Luis on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.

“It’s a matter of going on with your future and taking less money. So, I think he’s looking at it, not as a business move, but as a future move to making the NBA,” the St. John’s head coach said.

“And every year you don’t go that route, it’s tougher to get there.”

Pitino explained that he wasn’t surprised about RJ Luis’ decision because the Big East Player of the Year told him months ago that he was going to stay in the draft.

Luis’ time at St. John’s came to a controversial ending after he was benched in the Red Storm’s NCAA Tournament loss against Arkansas for the final five minutes. A week later he announced his intentions to enter the NBA Draft while also putting his name into the transfer portal to keep all of his options open. However, one thing was certain that he would not be returning to St. John’s.

“He’s going to be a great pro,” Pitino added prior to his ceremonial first pitch of the New York Yankees and Cleveland Guardians game.

“What people don’t realize, because they haven’t coached him, is how good of a passer he is, how good a shot blocker he is, how good an offensive rebounder he is. They just see the scoring ability.”

Luis averaged 18.2 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 1.4 steals per game for the Johnnies this season while shooting 43.9-percent from the floor and 33.6-percent from 3-point range. He participated in the NBA Draft Combine in addition to having individual workouts for several NBA teams.

“He’ll improve his 3-point shooting once he gets to that level and then I think he’ll be lethal in what he can do.”  

The two-day NBA Draft begins on Wednesday, June 25 with the first round and will be followed by the second round on Thursday, June 26. St. John’s has three other draft eligilbe players in Kadary Richmond, Deivon Smith, and Aaron Scott.



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Deion Sanders calls for rev-share cap, points out spending among College Football Playoff teams

With the revenue-sharing era well underway in college football, coaches are evaluating the state of the landscape. Schools are now able to directly share up to $20.5 million with athletes as part of the House v. NCAA settlement. Colorado coach Deion Sanders sees a way to further settle things, though. Speaking during a roundtable at […]

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With the revenue-sharing era well underway in college football, coaches are evaluating the state of the landscape. Schools are now able to directly share up to $20.5 million with athletes as part of the House v. NCAA settlement.

Colorado coach Deion Sanders sees a way to further settle things, though. Speaking during a roundtable at Big 12 Media Days on Wednesday, Coach Prime called for a cap on rev-share dollars to shift things toward an NFL-like operation.

To illustrate his point, Sanders pointed out last year’s College Football Playoff and the conversations around roster costs. National champion Ohio State made headlines with its roster, worth upward of $20 million.

“I wish there was a cap,” Sanders said during the panel. “Like, the top-of-the-line player makes this and if you’re not that type of guy, you know you’re not going to make that. That’s what the NFL does. The problem is, you’ve got a guy that’s not that darn good, but he could go to another school and they give him another half a million dollars. You can’t compete with that. It don’t make sense.

“You talk about equality … all you have to do is look at the playoffs and see what those teams spent, and you understand darn near why they’re in the playoffs. It’s kind of hard to compete with somebody who’s giving $25, $30 million to a darn freshman class. It’s crazy.”

Ohio State’s 2024 roster was considered one of the more expensive rosters in college football last season as the Buckeyes took down Notre Dame to win the national championship. This year, though, roster costs continued to grow as teams braced for the House v. NCAA settlement.

On3’s Pete Nakos previously reported those figures soared toward $25 to $30 million on the higher end before the settlement’s approval. Once Judge Claudia Wilken issued her order, the NIL Go clearinghouse went into effect for deals worth at least $600. That led to frontloading of deals during recruitments prior to final approval.

But even with the rising costs of rosters and the ever-changing landscape, Deion Sanders said coaches still have to develop players. That said, he also reiterated what spending big money on a roster can do when the postseason comes around.

“We’re not complaining, because all these coaches up here can coach their butts off and given the right opportunity with the right players and to play here and there, you’ll be there,” Sanders said. “But what’s going on right now don’t make sense. We want to say stuff, but we’re trying to be professional.

“But you’re going to see the same teams darn near at the end, and with somebody who sneaks up in there, the team that pays the most is going to be there in the end.”



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CFB revenue-sharing causing massive shift in NIL collectives, private equity money

The world of college sports has shifted more in the last few years than it has in almost its entire existence. With NIL, the transfer portal, and more popping up and changing in the blink of an eye, it can be hard to keep up with everything happening. With the most recent change, or adjustment, […]

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The world of college sports has shifted more in the last few years than it has in almost its entire existence. With NIL, the transfer portal, and more popping up and changing in the blink of an eye, it can be hard to keep up with everything happening.

With the most recent change, or adjustment, the House settled with the NCAA and ruled that colleges and universities could directly pay their athletes, a virtual pay-to-play situation for college athletes.

You might be thinking, “How is that any different from the NIL collectives and funds that have been in place for the past couple of years?”

Honestly, that’s a really great question, one that even some college athletic departments are trying to grapple with as we speak. These universities built million-dollar funds through boosters, donations, NIL deals, and more.

Now, those funds are rapidly getting cut as schools no longer have to use a “workaround” to get their players the most amount of money possible. Yet another shift in college sports.

The NIL Go Clearinghouse was created within the House settlement as a virtual vetting system for various NIL deals that continue to pop up, even with programs directly paying athletes, and is run by the brand-new College Sports Commission.

Beyond NIL deals and getting a paycheck signed over to them by their teams, college athletes now have a big question surrounding them:

“Is it possible for private equity funds to pay collegiate athletes without crossing any of the House settlement lines?

For now, the answer is still unknown. Colleges are having to look between the lines to ensure that they aren’t walking themselves or their players into a sticky situation, mainly because this has never been a situation before.

Currently, the Texas Tech Red Raiders are the frontrunners in the learning curve, already writing a three-year $5.1 million check over to five-star offensive tackle Felix Ojo, and preparing to write an even bigger one to land LaDamion Guyton, the No. 1 prospect in the class of 2027.

To put it simply, most questions you’re possibly asking are being asked by everyone else, including the bigwigs in the NCAA and athletic departments. Most of the answers to those questions are still unknown, and may be for quite a while.



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NIL Spending Influences College Football Playoff, Says Deion Sanders

During Big 12 Media Days, Colorado head coach Deion Sanders made headlines with his staunch critique of the current NIL landscape in college football. He expressed concerns that the unregulated spending on athletes creates an imbalance, favoring wealthier programs. Sanders argued that the teams with the biggest financial resources, not necessarily the best coaching or […]

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During Big 12 Media Days, Colorado head coach Deion Sanders made headlines with his staunch critique of the current NIL landscape in college football. He expressed concerns that the unregulated spending on athletes creates an imbalance, favoring wealthier programs. Sanders argued that the teams with the biggest financial resources, not necessarily the best coaching or player development, dominate the College Football Playoff. He noted that programs are investing exorbitantly into recruiting, leading to a competitive hierarchy rooted in financial backing rather than merit. His comments highlight the pressing need for a structured approach to NIL compensation in college sports.

By the Numbers

  • Some programs are reportedly offering 25–30 million for a single freshman recruiting class.
  • Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes finished last season with a record of 9-4, including a bowl loss to BYU.

State of Play

  • Various college football programs are engaging in a financial arms race to attract top talent.
  • Sanders’ comments reflect a growing concern among coaches and players about the influence of money in recruiting.

What’s Next

As the dialogue around NIL spending intensifies, it could prompt discussions among NCAA leadership regarding potential regulations or caps on compensation. This tension may lead programs to either invest more heavily in recruiting or advocate for more equitable compensation structures. The outcome could redefine competitive balance and strategy in college football.

Bottom Line

Deion Sanders’ remarks underscore a critical crossroads for college football, where financial power is eclipsing traditional values of skill and teamwork. His call for regulations highlights an urgent need for reform to ensure that competition remains fair and based on athletic ability rather than budget size. The future of college sports hangs in the balance as stakeholders weigh the implications of endless NIL spending.





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John Calipari heads into his second season at Arkansas trying to balance old and new

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — John Calipari admits he is still navigating the “new” college basketball, a world in which the 66-year-old’s traditional recruiting style is no longer the norm. But Calipari made it work last season, his first with the Razorbacks, and proved naysayers wrong. But the Arkansas basketball coach isn’t interested in doing things the […]

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — John Calipari admits he is still navigating the “new” college basketball, a world in which the 66-year-old’s traditional recruiting style is no longer the norm.

But Calipari made it work last season, his first with the Razorbacks, and proved naysayers wrong. But the Arkansas basketball coach isn’t interested in doing things the same way moving forward.

Calipari spoke about his first year at Arkansas on Wednesday.

The Razorbacks started Southeastern Conference play last season with five straight losses. But Arkansas ultimately reached the Sweet 16. Now, Calipari has taken a different approach in rebuilding the Razorbacks’ roster heading into his second year in Fayetteville.

“I came here saying I want eight or nine guys because of NIL (name, image, likeness). I can’t pick 12,” Calipari said. “Now I’m like ‘Let’s have eight or nine that know,’ but you have other players we’re developing.”

Calipari has long been known as a master recruiter of high school players, regularly collecting top-10 classes at Kentucky and Memphis before that.

Now, the transfer portal has changed things. High school recruiting is not irrelevant, but preps players aren’t as big a focus. Now, it’s about veterans with college experience.

Arkansas had one returning player last season, forward Trevon Brazile, who is also back for his final season. Calipari built the rest of the roster and used a nine-player rotation. The other five team members played 23 minutes total.

Injuries sapped the Razorbacks of their two leading scorers. Guard Boogie Fland, who has transferred to Florida, played in 21 games, and forward Adou Thiero, who was selected in the NBA draft, played in 26. The two played less than 10 minutes in Arkansas’ season-ending loss to Texas Tech in the NCAA Tournament. Also gone are center Jonas Aidoo, forward Zvonimir Ivisic and guard Johnell Davis.

Now, the Razorbacks have two 6-foot-10 transfers in Nick Pringle from Alabama and Malique Ewin from Florida State. And there are three perimeter freshmen. Guards Meleek Thomas and Darius Acuff Jr. were five-star recruits, and wing Isaiah Sealy ranked as a four-star.

On Wednesday, Calipari had practically a full contingent to run through 5-on-5 work, which rarely happened last season.

“Last year, we were always together, but as injuries started peeling off guys, they understood how much they needed each other. The way this is, you probably need to play more people,” Calipari said.

Arkansas reached the Sweet 16 for the fourth time in five years after entering the NCAA Tournament as a No. 10 seed and starting SEC play at 1-5 for the third straight season. That start came as the least experienced team in the league, Calipari said.

This season, Arkansas returns the most production in the SEC, increasing expectations and stakes.

“It’s only 45%, but it’s still the most in our league,” Calipari said.

DJ Wagner is the only returner who averaged double figure scoring. Karter Knox tested the NBA waters before returning, and Billy Richmond saw plenty of key minutes. There is also Brazile, once considered a possible first round NBA pick before a torn ACL three seasons ago. In his final seven games last season, Brazile averaged 12.6 points and 9.7 rebounds.

“I’d tell you he (Brazile) is playing the best ball since I’ve coached him,” Calipari said. “If he’s the guy I’m seeing, you’re talking about someone that we have one or two like that, then this thing is on. He’s that good. Now you’ve got to find out who are the other couple that can make differences in the game.”

Arkansas’ mix of young and old looks familiar to Calipari — and anyone who saw his teams at Kentucky. Whether or not the new-old approach to roster building comes to fruition, even Calipari is unsure.

“None of us know,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out how this is going to work.”



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What Jay Paterno’s bookshelf teaches about NIL, revenue-sharing, and college football

A bookshelf, among the trinkets and clutter that we have nowhere else put, contains stories and memories; some our own, some passed down from family members or legends, immortalized for the words they wrote or the many written about them. Sometimes those legends are family. A bookshelf is where Jay Paterno keeps Steve Spurrier’s visor […]

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A bookshelf, among the trinkets and clutter that we have nowhere else put, contains stories and memories; some our own, some passed down from family members or legends, immortalized for the words they wrote or the many written about them.

Sometimes those legends are family. A bookshelf is where Jay Paterno keeps Steve Spurrier’s visor from the 1998 Citrus Bowl, the same place that his father, Joe, once kept it after losing that game, and a friendly wager with his friend that required him to wear it off the field. 

Penn State had national championship aspirations that season and was the No. 1 or 2-ranked team in the country until a Week 11 loss to Michigan and a Week 14 loss to Michigan State.

The Nittany Lions settled for the Citrus Bowl meeting with Florida, which also spent time at No. 1 that year. Paterno and Spurrier, who were close friends, agreed that if Penn State won, Spurrier would wear Paterno’s glasses off the field, and if Florida did, Paterno would have to wear the visor. 

The visor, white with the script “Gators” across the front in blue with orange piping, served as an important mnemonic for Joe and a lesson that still echoes in his son’s head. 

“Going into that game, we had a couple of players that were eligible to play, but had kind of broken some team rules, and Joe left them home,” Paterno, then the tight ends and running backs coach on his father’s staff, recalled in an exclusive interview with Soaring to Glory. “Joe took that visor and always had it inside of his bookshelf at home because it was a reminder that he was willing to potentially risk losing a football game to try to do the right thing for the general health of the program.” 

Paterno still plays a role in overseeing the health of Penn State football, as a member of the Board of Trustees, but his latest endeavor concerns the health of college football writ large. 

Paterno is the author of Blitzed!: The All-Out Pressure of College Football’s New Era. A story that follows fictional Ohio State head coach Ed Hart as he navigates the increased demands and new challenges of the NIL and transfer portal era, based on real stories. Stories about how coaches with bags of cash and a handgun quickly became legitimate financial agreements, and every way in which the job is different from when his father did it for 46 years in Happy Valley. 

“Recruiting has always been a big deal, but recruiting now is identifying high school talent, identifying talent at other schools that’s entering the transfer portal, but also recruiting your own players to stay on your roster,” Paterno said, echoing a common refrain from frustrated coaches who have either left the sport, or like Chip Kelly and Jeff Hafley, resigned from head coaching jobs to become coordinators either in the college ranks or the NFL. 

However, Paterno, contrary to the message that many college football doomsday preppers began to trumpet when Kelly left UCLA and Hafley left Boston College, doesn’t foresee any mass exodus from college football coaching, or even many other coaches viewing the NFL as a life raft off NIL island. 

“I think as long as we’re paying college coaches the kind of money that we’re paying them right now, head coaches, I think there’s going to be a real incentive for them to stick it out,” Paterno said, tongue planted firmly in cheek. “When you talk about the business model of college football, you have some head coaches at schools making 10 percent of total revenue of the program, not profit, but revenue. That’s hard to find in any business anywhere in the world.” 

And what does that money buy? Well, in many cases, some of the best rule breakers (or evaders if you don’t get caught), in sports. 

“As a coach, your job is constantly to find loopholes. Ohio State has a certain type of defense, I have got to find a hole in that defense, if the NCAA passes a certain rule as it relates to NIL, I have got to find what I can do that’s not forbidden… We’re going to see some very creative stuff because this profession does attract some very creative minds.” 

Creativity is a necessity in the profession, even for a fictional character like Coach Hart leading the Buckeyes. Because even within the pages of Paterno’s college football fantasy, winning is everything. 

“Let’s be realistic about what we’re dealing with here. We’re dealing with a bunch of people for whom winning at all costs carries a significant financial reward,” Paterno acknowledged, addressing the perpetual line-stepping throughout the history of the sport. “We’re not giving coaches big six-figure bonuses if they graduate 85 percent of players.” 

While he’s taken a coach’s perspective throughout the book, if you’re searching for sympathy for the most highly-paid figures in the sport, look elsewhere. Paterno is a vocal advocate of the players and their involvement in solving college football’s most existential issues. 

There aren’t many people involved in modern college football as connected to the sport in its previous form as the son of a man who coached from 1966 until 2011, and Paterno, like many traditionalists, is not a fan of the “implosion of the amatuer model” as he calls it in the description of his book. But that may be the only part of the issue where he and other old-school college football minds find common ground. 

“We need to be realistic about what we’re doing here,” Paterno said, referencing the boom in television contracts and revenue generated by the Power Conferences and NCAA’s major events like March Madness. “This is not an extra-curricular activity that guys come to school to play for ‘Dear Old State’ or whatever it may be.

“This has become a business, and when you start talking about coaches making the kind of money that they’re making – I think the one thing I would change is with the revenue-sharing, I think coaches’ salaries should come down and revenue sharing for players in all the sports should come up, but I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon.” 

Revenue-sharing is the latest monkey wrench thrown into college athletics, part of the House vs. NCAA settlement that went into effect on July 1, 2025. The settlement allows schools to pay athletes directly from a pool of revenue-sharing money that in Year 1 will total about $20.5 million.

It’s the result of three federal antitrust lawsuits that claimed the NCAA was illegally limiting the earning power of college athletes. It also requires the NCAA to pay $2.8 billion in back damages to athletes from 2016 through the time of the settlement, over the next 10 years. 

It’s a step in the right direction, but Paterno and many of its detractors agree that it’s merely a half measure. He believes that college football needs something more… revolutionary. 

“It’s time for a constitutional convention,” Paterno said. Like the visor that loomed large over his right shoulder, a bit of history informing his vision for the future of college football. “The governing bodies of these schools should be part of this process, as should student-athletes. When you look at the College Football Playoff, every year they make changes, and the student-athletes aren’t at the table to say, ‘wait a minute, maybe we don’t want to play four more games or five more games without getting a chunk of the money.” 

Then, like a true former college football coach, Paterno proceeded to find every potential loophole in the current deal; the state laws that can override its validity, the future lawsuit from a new star player who wasn’t represented in these class action suits, who doesn’t want their earning power artificially capped by this agreement, and the old-fashioned bags of cash that could make their triumphant return to the sport to skirt the NIL clearinghouse. 

Then, Paterno addressed the elephant that has wedged itself into every room where the future of college football is discussed. 

“I think collective bargaining has to show up. I think it’s going to happen. They’re going to have to be treated as employees. Let’s be realistic about that,” Paterno said. “You’re giving somebody a 1099 form for $1.5 million to play football at your school, it’s hard to argue that they’re not employees.” 

Paterno’s fictional Coach Hart may not make the same argument, but for someone so entrenched in the history of the sport, Paterno is uniquely pragmatic about its future. Coaches must adapt, and players deserve more power. Most of the powers in college football will resist these necessary changes as long as they can. Instead, maybe they should take a lesson from the Paternos and Spurriers’ famous visor, and sacrifice this game for the long-term health of the sport. 



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Colorado’s Deion Sanders says NIL spending decides who makes the College Football Playoff at Big 12 Media Days

Deion Sanders is never short on opinions, and during Wednesday’s Big 12 Media Days in Dallas, the Colorado head coach had plenty to say — from the state of his program to his expectations in year two. But it was his unfiltered take on the current landscape of NIL in college football that stole the […]

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Deion Sanders is never short on opinions, and during Wednesday’s Big 12 Media Days in Dallas, the Colorado head coach had plenty to say — from the state of his program to his expectations in year two. But it was his unfiltered take on the current landscape of NIL in college football that stole the spotlight.

“I wish it was capped,” Sanders said when asked how he would regulate NIL (via Ari Meirov). “You know, like, the top of the line player makes this, and if you’re not the type of guy, you know you’re not going to make that. That’s what the NFL does.”

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Sanders, who has embraced the new era of athlete compensation, wasn’t complaining about players making money — but he made it clear that the lack of structure is turning college football into a financial arms race.

“The problem is, you got a guy that’s not that dern good and he could go to another school and they give him a half-a-million dollars and you can’t compete with that.”

That sentiment quickly escalated into a broader critique of the sport’s competitive balance. Sanders pointed directly at the College Football Playoff as a reflection of where the money is going — and who it’s benefitting.

“All you gotta do is look at the College Football Playoff and see what those teams spent, and you’ll understand darn well why they’re in the playoffs,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to compete with somebody who’s given 25–30 million to a dern freshmen class.”

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“What’s going on right now don’t make sense. And we want to say stuff but we’re trying to be professional. But you’re going to see the same teams, darn near at the end… But the teams that pay the most are going to be there in the end.”

It’s not the first time Sanders has called out structural flaws in college football. And it won’t be the last. While his Buffaloes have drawn national attention for flashy moves and media buzz, they’ve yet to match that with postseason results — finishing 9-4 last season and bowl loss to BYU.

And though Sanders touched on a wide range of topics Wednesday, including the quarterback competition between Kaidon Salter and JuJu Lewis, it was his NIL comments that cut deepest.

Sanders’ frustration isn’t just philosophical. As he tries to rebuild a winner in Boulder, he’s competing against schools with NIL budgets that may dwarf Colorado’s. And in his view, that’s leading to a college football hierarchy that’s no longer about coaching or culture — it’s about cash.

As always with Coach Prime, the message was clear. Now it’s up to the rest of college football to decide whether to keep spending — or start listening.



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