UCLA Bruins women’s basketball head coach Cori Close is concerned about the state of NIL in the college basketball world.
Close shared object Yahoo! sporty This week, while she loves the growth of the sport and that the NIL is “long overdue,” she doesn’t like the current situation. UCLA coach believes the spirit of the NIL has changed.
advertise
“We have no boundaries at all. There is no salary cap,” Close said.
“There’s no competitive fairness, and what’s happening, I’m afraid, is those who are losing are slowing down the growth of the sport because it’s shutting out high school athletes. It really takes away a percentage of their opportunity, and I don’t like that. And you’re going to see less development over four years.”
Close said she has a responsibility to keep the Bruins’ program at a championship level, but she doesn’t think she can do that by recruiting freshmen and developing them over time. The UCLA coach revealed she lost six seniors after the season, including star center Lauren Bates, and she won’t replace them with freshmen. Instead, Close and her staff will focus on adding four to five transfer players and a small group of first-year players.
“My responsibility is to adapt to the circumstances I’m faced with and lead well no matter what,” Close said. “But I do think we need to be very careful not to ruin our game by being too greedy and not having good borders and infrastructure.”
Cross admitted that while she invested a lot of energy in recruiting high school players and transferring, she was also paying attention to the current status of negotiations between the CBA and the WNBA. There’s a good chance some, if not all, of the Bruins’ senior class will be selected in the first round of the 2026 WNBA draft.
advertise
“I’m really supportive of the WNBA establishing a CBA right now, which will help us continue to build momentum in the league,” Close said.
“I just think that when money comes in, when greed comes in, you’re in danger of losing what’s really special about the growth of this sport. I’m hopeful, but I’m warning people: We have to make hard and good choices to protect the integrity of our game and the growth of our game. If we get greedy and get too selfish, we’re going to lose that before we know it.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UCLA’s Cori Close warns of NIL greed in NCAA basketball
