Rick Pitino Brainstorms Two Outside-the-Box Solutions to Save College Basketball

The St. John’s coach pitched a couple of interesting ideas.

St. John’s coach Rick Pitino recently came up with two potential solutions to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of college basketball and name, image and likeness (NIL) deals.

His first suggestion? A salary cap.

“Have the Power Five and Big East conference commissioners get together and create a salary cap between $1.5 and $2 million,” Pitino suggested on social media Tuesday. “... All other conferences establish their own salary cap.”

Ok - we all want solutions to preserve our great game. Today I'm going to suggest solution one:

For basketball - have the Power 5 & Big East conference commissioners get together and create a salary cap between 1.5 n 2.0 million. All contracts delivered to the league and school…

— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) February 6, 2024

About three hours later, Pitino pitched another idea.

“Do away with letters of intent; make athletes sign a two-year binding contract, no different than professional athletes—which they are,” Pitino wrote on social media. “With that, the collective puts together their NIL contract based on the cap.”

Remember this is only food for thought. All possible solutions.

Solution 2:

Do away with letters of intent, make athletes sign a two year binding contract, no different than professional athletes - which they are. With that, the collective puts together their NIL contract based…

— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) February 6, 2024

When he’s not coming up with ideas for what’s next in college basketball, Pitino is leading the Red Storm through their Big East conference schedule.

Through 22 games this season, St. John’s is 13–9 with a 5–6 mark in conference play. The Red Storm battle DePaul on Tuesday before visiting No. 7 Marquette on Saturday.