Will rule changes in college basketball make a difference?

Winning matters so much that otherwise well-intentioned people have to play a game in which they would prefer not to participate.

Whatever the reality, the perception is not good. One prominent college coach is convinced it is much more perception than reality. Another prominent coach is for anything that can change a culture he dislikes. A third coach, at a mid-major, sort of shakes his head at all of it, knowing none of the talk is about him or his school, but it is all about the basketball superpowers that usually get most of the high seeds in March.

Late last month, the Division I board of directors passed several emergency rules that will have an immediate impact on recruiting. The first task force to consider rules for one sport was formed in June 2008. The group, consisting of NCAA enforcement reps that solicited opinions of college coaches and conference commissioners, made several significant recommendations that are now in effect:

* No more package deals where somebody close to a player gets hired to a staff position in what is perceived as a quid pro quo.

* No more payments to summer-league teams with prospects.

* No subscribing to recruiting services that really aren't services at all, but ways for an outsider with access to a prospect to get paid in return for giving a school a chance to recruit that prospect.

* No one but members of a campus community or a team's players can be hired to work summer camps, as a way to stop payments to somebody close to a prospect. (This is almost certainly going to be amended as there simply would not be enough people to work these camps and working camps is how aspiring coaches get into the pipeline).

There is more, but that is the essence of it. Other changes will be voted on in January and likely pass because they have the backing of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and conference commissioners. They would be enacted in April.

Is this going to end the corruption? No. Cheaters will cheat. Could it make it tougher? Maybe. Is it necessary? Depends upon whom you ask.

"It took the SEC 17 years to catch up to Bernard Madoff," Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt said. "He can go 17 years and everybody gives him the presumption of innocence. In men's basketball, we're presumed guilty from the door."

There are some very prominent coaches who are either unethical, willing to straddle the line between right and wrong, or both. The problem is that just about every coach gets painted with the same broad brush.

"I'm disappointed that we continue to give the perception that college basketball coaches are the scourge of the earth," Hewitt said. "We're the most unethical people out there. I think most of the rules that are put in are for maybe three to four percent of the prospects."

Notre Dame coach Mike Brey understands the perception as well. He just looks at it differently.

"I think we need drastic changes to the culture," Brey said. "It's embarrassed us as a profession. From the end of the Final Four, we were in the news for the wrong reasons again. I'm in favor of anything really drastic to see if we can get the whole culture under control. We're put in some really tricky spots as coaches now when we want to access the network, so to speak."

The "network" is that netherworld of hangers-on, street agents and people-who-know-people. It is all about getting players, but what is right and wrong is the debate.

"Is it really unethical, is it really wrong if a kid feels comfortable with a guy that he wants that guy around and that school thinks he's qualified enough to hire him," Hewitt asked.

This summer, Hewitt had a position open and he kept it open. Why?

"I was waiting to see if somebody came up to me who was qualified and who could have a player come with him. I was going to hire that person. By the end of the summer, nobody materialized."