World
Pitino: NCAA enforcement arm `a joke' that's `of no value anymore' and `should be disbanded'
NEW YORK (AP) — With legal disputes escalating over the use of name, image and likeness compensation in the recruitment of college athletes, Hall of Fame basketball coach Rick Pitino believes it’s time for the NCAA to stand down when it comes to policing member schools.
“It’s a very difficult time in college basketball, because it’s free agency. And now I think what’s going to happen is, they’re going to say everybody can transfer, and then if they don’t like it, they’re going to take ‘em to court,” the first-year St. John’s coach said Saturday.
“So, I think the NCAA enforcement staff just should be disbanded. It’s a joke. Not because I dislike them. But, they’re of no value anymore. Because just, Tennessee now will take ‘em to court, Virginia will take ’em to court …”
The attorneys general of Tennessee and Virginia filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA on Wednesday that challenged its ban on the use of NIL compensation in recruiting, and in response to the association’s investigation of the University of Tennessee.
A judge will hear their request on Feb. 13 for a preliminary injunction that would put on hold NCAA rules banning recruiting inducements and pay-for-play, the court posted Friday.
The 71-year-old Pitino volunteered his thoughts on the NCAA following his team’s 77-64 loss to top-ranked UConn at Madison Square Garden. His comments came at the postgame news conference in response to a reporter’s question about stoking a renewed rivalry with the powerhouse Huskies, the defending national champions, as he rebuilds the St. John’s program.
“The enforcement staff needs to go away,” Pitino continued. “We need to stop all the hypocrisy of NIL. We need to stop it. Because they can’t stop it. Whether I’m for it or against it doesn’t matter.
“They are professional athletes. Get professionally paid. It’s not going away. You can’t try to get loopholes, because they take you to court. That’s why I say — so I‘m not knocking the enforcement staff — they’re going to get taken to court every time they try to make a rule. So it’s a tough time in college basketball right now. And for us, you can’t really build programs and a culture because everybody leaves.”
Pitino, who won national championships at Kentucky in 1996 and Louisville in 2013, has had his own history of run-ins with the NCAA.
The title at Louisville was vacated for NCAA violations, and another NCAA case related to the FBI’s investigation into corruption in college basketball recruiting led to him being fired by Louisville in 2017.
The final ruling from the NCAA’s outside enforcement arm on the FBI case came down in November 2022 and exonerated Pitino.
After leaving Iona last March to take the St. John’s job, Pitino brought in 12 new players for this season — including 10 transfers. But he said the current college landscape involving NIL and the transfer portal makes it “very tough” to build a consistent culture at a high-level program.
“I think so many football coaches are getting out, so many basketball coaches are getting out, because of this culture,” Pitino said. “It’s tough to build a program. You’ve got to really innovate, get creative and understand these rules right now — or lack of rules.”
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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball
World
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World
Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’
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Greenland’s leadership is pushing back on President Donald Trump as he and his administration call for the U.S. to take control of the island. Several Trump administration officials have backed the president’s calls for a takeover of Greenland, with many citing national security reasons.
“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night, according to The Associated Press. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory and a longtime U.S. ally, has repeatedly rejected Trump’s statements about U.S. acquiring the island.
Greenland’s party leaders reiterated that the island’s “future must be decided by the Greenlandic people.”
“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasize once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” the statement said.
TRUMP SAYS US IS MAKING MOVES TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND ‘WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT’
Greenland has rejected the Trump administration’s push to take over the Danish territory. (Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images; Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump was asked about the push to acquire Greenland on Friday during a roundtable with oil executives. The president, who has maintained that Greenland is vital to U.S. security, said it was important for the country to make the move so it could beat its adversaries to the punch.
“We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday. “Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”
Trump hosted nearly two dozen oil executives at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela after the historic capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.
“We don’t want to have Russia there,” Trump said of Venezuela on Friday when asked if the nation appears to be an ally to the U.S. “We don’t want to have China there. And, by the way, we don’t want Russia or China going to Greenland, which, if we don’t take Greenland, you can have Russia or China as your next-door neighbor. That’s not going to happen.”
Trump said the U.S. is in control of Venezuela after the capture and extradition of Maduro.
Nielsen has previously rejected comparisons between Greenland and Venezuela, saying that his island was looking to improve its relations with the U.S., according to Reuters.
A “Make America Go Away” baseball cap, distributed for free by Danish artist Jens Martin Skibsted, is arranged in Sisimiut, Greenland, on March 30, 2025. (Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
FROM CARACAS TO NUUK: MADURO RAID SPARKS FRESH TRUMP PUSH ON GREENLAND
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday that Trump’s threats to annex Greenland could mean the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
“I also want to make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops. Including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.
That same day, Nielsen said in a statement posted on Facebook that Greenland was “not an object of superpower rhetoric.”
Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stands next to Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a visit to the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen on April 28, 2025. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
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White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller doubled down on Trump’s remarks, telling CNN in an interview on Monday that Greenland “should be part of the United States.”
CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Miller about whether the Trump administration could rule out military action against the Arctic island.
“The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
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