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SMU head coach Larry Brown says NCAA is ‘full of bologna’

Larry Brown

AP

AP

The July live evaluation period ended with the adidas Super 64 in Las Vegas. SMU head coach Larry Brown was back on the recruiting trail, 11 months after he landed one of the top players in the Class of 2014, Emmanuel Mudiay, over Kentucky.

Amanda Busick of Campus Insiders caught up with Brown in Vegas. In a four-minute interview, they touched on the Mustangs missing the NCAA tournament, the loss of Mudiay and the current structure of the NCAA, which led to Brown calling the NCAA, “full of bologna”.

“Our conference is pretty good, we’re lucky,” Brown said. “When you’re with Connecticut, Cincinnati, Memphis, Temple, you’re lucky. But I hate the trend. There are no rivalries anymore other than [in] football. Travel is terrible. They talk about the best interest in student-athletes, they are full of bologna. They are only interested in money. Then some of these so-called power conferences are going to be able to provide things for kids that maybe some of the lower-level schools can’t. It’s not fair.”

Brown, entering his third season with SMU, also gave his thoughts on Mudiay, who announced he would be playing professionally in China this season on July 14. He eventually signed a $1.2 million with the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association.

“I don’t want to see it as a trend,” Brown told Busick. “I’d like to see it like baseball where if you’re in high school and special like LeBron or Emmanuel you can come out. But if you stay, stay three years. You’re more inclined to get a degree. It’d be better for everybody.

“I think it’s a terrible message for kids. It’s the right thing for Emmanuel and his family. They were struggling and he was tired of seeing that happen. College is the best alternative for kids.”

Brown is 42-27 in two seasons at SMU. With Mudiay, the Mustangs could have been a top-10 team. Even without the No. 2 overall recruit, SMU is in a good position to reach the program’s first NCAA tournament since 1993.

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