CBS Sports college basketball writers Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander surveyed more than 100 coaches for our annual Candid Coaches series. They polled everyone from head coaches at elite programs to assistants at some of the smallest Division I schools. In exchange for complete anonymity, the coaches provided unfiltered honesty about a number of topics in the sport. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be posting the results on 10 questions we asked them.

The Commission on College Basketball was formed last October in response to an FBI investigation that, two months earlier, had led to the arrest of four assistant coaches. Headed by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the commission's job was to come up with ideas that could eliminate some, if not all, of the well-documented problems facing the sport. But their eventual recommendations were largely panned by members of the media, myself included.

Simply put, they failed.

And the reason they failed is because there's not one thing the FBI exposed that a rule-change sparked by the Commission on College Basketball will fix. I've said and written it many times. But we were still curious to know what college basketball coaches think. So we asked more than 100 of them the following question:

Will the Commission on College Basketball actually solve the sport's problems?

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CBS Sports / Mike Meredith

No

92 percent

Yes

8 percent

Quotes that stood out

  • "Let's say it's Hurricane Katrina, whatever. The president, people who run the country, are going to go to ground-level to see what's happening, what needs to be worked on, what needs to be fixed. But I've yet to see anyone this summer enter a gym that had that kind of status. If you personally are leading, and are a leader, and have been armed with this responsibility, it's your responsibility to get to the ground-level and see how things are done. How can you make change when you're not in the cracks of recruiting? Forget anything else, that's a failure. You want to show good will? You want to gain the respect of the coaches and all these people? Then be present. I've never seen somebody who cared who wasn't present. Secondly, when I look at the members on the board of that commission, they're all really intelligent people. But look at the guys who have gotten in trouble. They're assistant coaches. And I didn't see one assistant coach on this panel. You can say 'We talked to many guys.' But who did you talk to? Those two things in my opinion are major failures. The people making decisions are so far removed from what's going on they can't make sense of it."
  • "How does reducing July stop anything that's going on? How does allowing some players to talk to agents stop anything that's going on? How does anything they recommended stop anything that's going on? It's a joke. They can't fix the problems because I'm not even sure they know what the problems are. They don't want to fix anything. They just want to make it look like they're trying to."
  • "Who's on that commission that's actually in the game right now? So how do they not contact a Bobby Hurley -- or guys who played at the highest level collegiately and currently are college coaches -- and get his opinion on what's going on and how to correct it? David Robinson. Grant Hill. Those are guys 20-plus years removed from what goes on in college athletics now. They couldn't function as a coach in this environment because of what they haven't experienced. This is going to make people go back to the old days with "hand-to-hand combat." You used to could get a shoe company to do your dirty work. Now that's taken away. So now it's the old days again. 'Meet me somewhere, here's your money,' and move on."
  • "I highly doubt they'll fix anything. We have a system where some coaches and schools make millions, but the players are not allowed to get any money.  We have a system where head coaches that have had staff members get arrested less than one year ago get extensions and raises from their administrations. I don't think anyone really wants to change the system. And, unless those two things change, the problems of corruption will exist."
  • "Will they fix college basketball? Hahaha. Not a chance."

The takeaway

It appears college coaches have about as much faith in the Commission on College Basketball as the media possesses. And that's because they largely feel the same way Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski said he felt just after the NCAA adopted the rule-changes earlier this month.

"They're all well-intentioned," Krzyzewski said. "But they're not coordinated. I'm being somewhat critical of the coordination and implementation -- the process of getting there and the process of making it happen."

Simply put, college coaches do not feel the right people are on the commission. And they do not feel the wrong people on the commission consulted the right people to actually gain an understanding of what matters and what doesn't -- which is something I've been writing and saying for months. As multiple coaches told us anonymously, and like Krzyzewski said publicly, the people on the commission are smart and well-intentioned. They're good humans. But they're so far removed from the inner-workings of amateur basketball in the year 2018 that they were always on a doomed mission. And the fact that they declined to seriously address the topic of amateurism guaranteed their recommendations would create headlines but solve literally none of the issues the FBI exposed.

I predicted that in April.

It came to fruition in August.

And the results of this poll show the Commission on College Basketball still has a ways to go to obtain the respect, and the confidence, of the college basketball coaches who live the sport seven days a week, 12 months a year.

CBS Sports' Candid Coaches series for college basketball

CBS Sports' Candid Coaches series for college football