NCAA Forms Men's Basketball Competition Committee

Courtesy NCAA
One student-athlete, two current head coaches, four Division I staff members and three members of the public with significant men’s basketball experience will form the newly created Division I Men’s Basketball Competition Committee, which will report directly to the Division I Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee in an advisory role.
The committee also will have regular communication with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee and will review student-athlete health and safety, sportsmanship and integrity, game operations and presentation, technology, and statistical trends. The group will develop strategic principles in these areas, subject to the approval of the Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee.
Judy Rose, the director of athletics at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Paul Brazeau, the senior associate commissioner for men’s basketball operations for the Atlantic Coast Conference, are members of the oversight committee who will serve as liaisons to the competition committee.
“This is an important substructure of the Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee, as this group will be charged with reviewing several key aspects of the game,” said Dan Guerrero, the director of athletics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and chair of the oversight committee. “The competition committee will focus on strategies to maintain the popularity and relevance of the sport and keep the game playable for our student-athletes and watchable for our fans. We are confident this group is going to make significant contributions to the betterment of college basketball.”
The first student-athlete to serve on the competition committee will be Nicholas Norton, a junior guard at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Norton, whose father, Randy, is the women’s basketball coach at UAB, was his team’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2015-16, is president of the school’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and serves as the chair of Conference USA’s Health and Safety Committee.
The head coaches appointed to the committee are Ernie Kent of Washington State University and Bob McKillop of Davidson College. Kent has served as a head coach for three different Division I schools (St. Mary’s, Oregon and Washington State), winning five conference championships and advancing to six NCAA tournaments. A former basketball student-athlete who also has broadcast experience, Kent is active with USA Basketball and is a board member with the National Association of Basketball Coaches. McKillop, who ranks in the top 25 in coaching victories among active Division I head coaches and has guided Davidson to 14 postseason tournaments in his 27 years at the school, is a 10-time conference coach of the year and was the 2008 NABC national coach of the year. A former basketball student-athlete, McKillop is a former head coach with USA Basketball and now serves on that organization’s competition committee.
The four administrators include committee chair Jim Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten Conference; Stu Jackson, senior associate commissioner of the Big East Conference; Dan Leibovitz, associate commissioner of men’s basketball for the Southeastern Conference; and Chris Reynolds, director of athletics at Bradley University. Delany is a former basketball student-athlete who has previously served as a member of the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee and as treasurer of USA Basketball. He now serves as chair of the Men’s College Basketball Officiating competition committee.
Jackson is a former collegiate and NBA coach and a former NBA president and general manager. He previously served on the NBA’s competition committee. He is a current member of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee.
Leibovitz is a former basketball student-athlete who has coaching experience at the collegiate and NBA level and previously served as associate commissioner for men’s basketball for the American Athletic Conference. He is a current member of the Men’s College Basketball Officiating competition committee.
Reynolds is another former basketball student-athlete whose career in athletics administration has taken him to Michigan State University, Western Michigan University, the University of Notre Dame, Northwestern University and Indiana University, Bloomington.
The other members of the committee are Jay Bilas, Clark Kellogg and Kiki Vandeweghe, who are all former student-athletes at Duke University, The Ohio State University and UCLA, respectively. Bilas, a practicing attorney who serves as a lead college basketball analyst for ESPN, is a member of the Men’s College Basketball Officiating competition committee. He is a former assistant coach at Duke and played professionally in Italy and Spain.
Kellogg, who serves as a lead college basketball analyst for CBS, is a member of The Ohio State University board of trustees and played in the NBA for five seasons.
Vandeweghe, who played 13 seasons in the NBA, is now the league’s executive vice president for basketball operations. He previously served as a head coach and general manager of the New Jersey Nets and the general manager of the Denver Nuggets. He also held a front office position with the Dallas Mavericks. Like Bilas and Kellogg, Vandeweghe has experience in television, having served as an NBA analyst for ESPN.