A thing I hold to be true—not just in basketball, but in life—is that on a long enough timeline, things improve. We have fits and starts and bigots and hatred and violence and opposition and the wheels of progress can and do churn at a frustratingly slow rate sometimes. But eventually, progress is made.
Which is why I believe, eventually and perhaps sooner rather than later, student-athletes will become employees at the Division I level, at the very least for football and men’s and women’s basketball. Would this likely crater smaller sports at all but the largest, most well-endowed schools, cause a Title IX battle the likes of which we haven’t seen in 40 years, shutter many athletic departments (not programs or sports, whole departments) entirely and cause at least as many problems (foreseen and unforeseen) as it solves? Perhaps. Good omelettes, broken eggs, that sort of thing.