After two high-profile cases in basketball this season, the NCAA Division I Cabinet will consider proposed changes to eligibility rules, including one that would bar athletes who have entered and remained in a professional sports draft from competing in college.

The Academics and Eligibility Committee proposed the changes Wednesday, and the cabinet could take action within weeks. The new rules, if approved, would be effective for athletes entering college this fall.

“These proposed changes reflect ongoing work by Division I members to modernize our rules to align with the current era of college sports,” said Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman, chair of the cabinet. “As Division I members proceed with reviewing all eligibility rules in the months ahead, our focus will be establishing rules that have objective criteria that can be consistently applied for both prospects and current student-athletes.”

One of the proposals would require prospects to withdraw from opt-in professional league drafts, including the NBA draft, to bring pre-college enrollment draft rules in line with post-college enrollment draft rules. Men’s ice hockey and baseball would not be affected because athletes don’t opt in to those sports’ drafts.

The proposal comes after two basketball players, Alabama’s Charles Bediako and Baylor’s James Nnaji, played in college this season after entering the 2023 NBA draft.

Bediako played two seasons at Alabama and entered the draft. He wasn’t selected but played three years in the G League, the NBA’s minor league. He filed a lawsuit against the NCAA after it denied Alabama’s request to allow him to return to collegiate competition this season.

Bediako’s lawyers argued that he remains within his five-year college eligibility window, an NCAA rule that is the subject of multiple other lawsuits. A judge, who later recused himself from the case, issued a temporary restraining order that allowed Bediako to play while the case moved forward. He played in five games before another judge lifted the order in a decision upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court.

Nnaji, from Nigeria, was selected by the Detroit Pistons in the second round of the draft. He played professionally overseas before he enrolled as a freshman at Baylor in December. He was granted eligibility because he had never signed an NBA contract or played in the G League.

The Academics and Eligibility Committee also proposed that prospects be allowed to sign with agents prior to enrolling in college. Under current NCAA rules, prospects are permitted to sign with agents only for name, image and likeness purposes, with exceptions for baseball and hockey players who can enter agreements with agents if they are drafted.

The committee also proposed that athletes be allowed to accept prize money in their respective sports without impacting eligibility. Currently, prospects can accept prize money only up to actual and necessary expenses, except in tennis, which permits up to $10,000 in prize money.

I’d say, “This isn’t funny anymore,” but I cracked that one last time. And I used the one about “letting somebody else have a chance to win a World Cup, since we have four of them at home — as many as England, Spain and France combined — and we don’t want to be greedy,” back in 2018.

So where do you turn to now that Italy have failed to qualify for three straight World Cups, something no other World Cup winning nation has ever done? Especially at a time when the World Cup field was increased by 50%, from 32 to 48 teams?

I’m not sure, but I am sure about what you don’t need after Tuesday’s defeat on penalties against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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You don’t need massive think pieces about the decline of Italian football and calls for root-and-branch reviews. No, it’s not because Serie A today isn’t as good as it was in the 1990s that Italy failed to qualify. Serie A was no better — it was arguably worse — when Italy reached the final of the Euros in 2012 and 2021, winning the latter.

You don’t need Gennaro Gattuso, the Italy coach (for the time being, anyway) talking up his team’s heart and effort and how they didn’t deserve to go out. Nobody can fault their heart and effort, but guess what? Bosnia showed just as much, if not more. And they were coming off 120 minutes plus penalties against Wales away from home, with a 40-year-old up front. (You want to talk “heart” and “effort” today? Look up Edin Dzeko.)

Or Gattuso lamenting their missed chances and episodes. Sure, if Moise Kean buries his counterattack in the second half, or Fede Dimarco finishes with his weaker foot, or Francesco Pio Esposito’s header sneaks past Nikola Vasilj, Italy qualify. Maybe they qualify if Tarik Muharemovic gets a yellow card instead of a red. And — cruel irony! — if Gianluigi Donnarumma hadn’t gotten to Dzeko’s finish, parrying it into the path of Haris Tabakovic for his goal, Italy would have advanced because the ball came off Dzeko’s elbow. But so what? Donnarumma had to make 10 saves, several of them world-class. Bosnia took 30 shots and missed a bunch of opportunities too.

The fact is, it’s not that deep. Italy may not be stacked with talent like France or Spain or England, but they had more than enough quality to qualify. They’re 13th in the FIFA rankings, for goodness’ sake. Nor is this an aging team (one starter, Matteo Politano, is over the age of 30) or a disinterested one (effort and application were not the issue).

The reality is that they made life mighty difficult for themselves at the start of the qualifying campaign, losing early on to Norway (thanks in part to some wretched decisions) which meant that, realistically, avoiding the playoffs was never really in their hands after that. Once you go into the one-and-done format, stuff can happen and moments attain outsized importance.

Alessandro Bastoni may be one of the best central defenders around, but his boneheaded red card after 41 minutes is a big reason Italy will be watching on TV this summer. At 11 vs. 11, you would have liked their chances not because they were playing well — to that point, the Azzurri had managed just two shots on goal for an xG of 0.15 — but because, with Italy 1-0 up at the time, there was a clear pathway.

Keep the ball, make Bosnia and Herzegovina chase you, tire them out, make your experience count. That’s what Gattuso does moderately well: simple game plans, playing the percentages and lots of fire, brimstone and arm-waving on the sidelines.

A man down, however, it all went out the window. Italy went into deep prevent mode and invited the Bosnian pressure. And for the players and the tens of millions of Azzurri fans, the game turned into an 80-minute nightmare directed by Esmir Bajraktarevic and Kerim Alajbegovic. It was a simple plan from a simple coach in Gattuso who — beyond sideline cheerleading — offered very little value during his time in charge.

Which, lest we forget, wasn’t long at all: Gattuso had no more than 15 sessions with his players in his 10 months at the helm. Though to be fair, you can’t help but wonder if more time might have given him more opportunities to screw things up. There’s no denying it: Gattuso didn’t help himself.

When you have better players than the opposition, the best strategy generally is to make that talent count, taking the game to them. And as we saw, Gattuso didn’t do that, possibly because he was spooked by the early lead they were gifted by the hosts, possibly because he was paralyzed by fear after the red card.

Are there structural problems that inhibit the growth of Italian football? Sure. You could cite too much emphasis on results and tactical nous over development and technical ability at the youth level. You could point to the fact that Serie A clubs are more reluctant to trust homegrown players than those in other leagues, creating a “blockage in the pipeline” to first-team football, or the fact that clubs do little or nothing to help the national side (witness Gattuso’s inability to organize even a two-day training camp).

But they’re not the reason Italy didn’t qualify for the World Cup. Bad decisions and bad performances in qualifying left them with margins that were far slimmer than they should have been. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s heart, grit and enthusiasm (and some missed penalties) did the rest.

Not that it lessens the hurt, in any way, shape or form, of course. When you’ve won four World Cups, believe me, it hurts even more.

UConn coach Dan Hurley downplayed his bizarre interaction with an official at the end of Sunday’s historic NCAA tournament victory against Duke, saying he thought the veteran referee was looking to “chest-bump me to celebrate.”

UConn completed one of the biggest comebacks in NCAA tournament history when freshman Braylon Mullins drained a 35-foot 3-point attempt to give the Huskies a 73-72 lead with 0.4 seconds remaining in their Elite Eight game against the Blue Devils.

In the immediate aftermath of Mullins’ shot, cameras showed an elated Hurley walking away from the UConn bench area and appearing to bump heads for a few seconds with official Roger Ayers, before both men continued to walk in opposite directions.

Hurley, addressing the now-viral incident during an interview this week with the “Triple Option” podcast, said Ayers is an “easy guy to work with” and denied that there was any animosity between the two of them during the game.

“Really, at that point in the game, we had it won,” Hurley said. “And [Ayers is] such an easy guy to work with during the game, that I thought he was coming over to chest-bump me to celebrate the shot.”

Hurley was not called for a technical foul, and UConn ultimately won after Duke’s desperation inbounds attempt was denied, securing the Huskies’ eighth Final Four trip and their third in four years under Hurley.

The NCAA announced its 11 officials for the Final Four on Monday, one day after UConn rallied from a 19-point deficit to beat Duke in the tournament’s East Regional final. Specific game assignments were not included in the NCAA’s announcement, but the list of officials did not include Ayers, who has officiated seven Final Fours, including last year’s.

Hurley referred to Ayers as a “cool-ass ref,” adding that they had positive interactions throughout the game.

“It’s not like that for me with him,” Hurley said. “My experience with him has been — we haven’t won every game, I haven’t agreed with every call. But in no way was that me and a ref that I had been at their throat the whole game.

“There were other points in the game where I had my arm around him, walking out of a timeout, we were cracking jokes and laughing.”

ESPN’s Seth Greenberg said on “SportsCenter” that he spoke Monday with Ayers, who told Greenberg that “nothing happened” with Hurley. Greenberg, a former longtime college basketball coach, added that Ayers “literally didn’t know what I was talking about” and said the interaction with Hurley was “absolutely nothing.”

Hurley told the “Triple Option” podcast that Ayers was approaching him to inform him how much time remained on the clock after Mullins’ miracle shot.

“He was just coming up to tell me there was 0.3 [seconds] — ‘I think there’s going to be 0.3 or 0.4 on the clock’ is what he was saying to me,” Hurley said. “And I was still so hyped from the shot going in.”

Hurley, who has a combative history with officials, was ejected from a regular-season game earlier this month against Marquette after making contact with referee John Gaffney in the closing seconds.

UConn will play Illinois in the first Final Four game Saturday in Indianapolis, followed by the other national semifinal between Michigan and Arizona.