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When he's not losing a game of P-O-T-U-S to President Barack Obama (by one letter), Clark Kellogg is the lead college basketball analyst for CBS.

The former Ohio State star -- Kellogg, not Obama -- will be the guest speaker next week at the Greensboro Sports Dinner.

Judging by a quick Q&A via telephone from his Columbus, Ohio, home Thursday, Kellogg has a lot to say.

JEFF MILLS: It looks as if the NCAA tournament will expand to 96 teams. Assuming that happens, is it a good idea?

CLARK KELLOGG: Initially I was adamantly opposed to expanding the field. It's a terrific tournament, and it's hard to envision something so good getting better, so why change it? But if you look at it from the NCAA's perspective -- managing two tournaments with the NIT, comparing the percentages of teams in NCAA championships in other sports, giving an opportunity for more student-athletes to participate -- I'd have to say I'm open to it now much more so than I was initially. I still don't know if I'm 100 percent for it, but I'm not 100 percent against it.

JM: So has the NIT run its course?

CK: If you're the NCAA and you've got 65 and 32, and you manage and run both of those tournaments, doesn't it make sense to put all those teams under one roof? Perhaps making the two into one makes one really good, big-time tournament. Those are reasonable options to explore, especially when you think about the money.

You have to consider, the bulk of all the NCAA's revenue comes from the men's basketball tournament. That's a major thing to look at. &ellipses; I know people screamed and bellyached when we went from 32 to 48, so I understand how change can be uncomfortable.

JM: George Mason reached the Final Four a couple of years ago, and Butler played in the championship game this year. What does that say about college basketball in general?

CK: There's been a couple of different things that have happened to shrink the gap between the six power conferences and other conferences.

The first thing, supremely talented players started skipping the college game altogether. You look at guys like Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O'Neal, Tracy McGrady, LeBron James &ellipses; some of your elite players were choosing the NBA over big-time college basketball. When the NBA changed the rule in 2005 and required kids to be 19 and at least one year out of high school, you started seeing an early exodus of elite players from college. A lot of people say those guys are just hired hands for a year, but I don't think that's true in every case. &ellipses;

The second thing is there are more good players than there used to be, and now -- because of television exposure -- they really have a chance to see there are a lot of good programs out there that are not traditional powers like Duke and Carolina. &ellipses; Some of those guys will go to a place where they can be a bigger fish in a smaller pond or go to a place where they can play right away. ...

I do think the top 50 players will generally want to go to traditional powers like Kansas, Kentucky, Carolina, Duke, UCLA. They're still going to have their pick of the elite players. But there are more good players out there. So schools like Butler, Gonzaga, Xavier and Richmond are going to be more competitive more often. But there's not going to be a seismic shift of them winning national championships.

JM: There have been more than 30 coaching changes this year, including some real surprises. Why so many?

CK: Last time I looked, it's actually more than 40. On one level it speaks to the business of college basketball. It's such a paradox. College athletics is this bastion of amateurism, but at the same time Division I college basketball is big business. We have to find ways to reconcile that with the mission of college sports. &ellipses;

It also speaks to the individual desires of coaches. ... I just don't think we're going to see a time when coaches stay in one place for decades. The days when you see someone like a Coach K or Jim Boeheim or even Gary Williams, who's been at Maryland for 20 years now, those days are gone. &ellipses; You're just not going to see that with young coaches today in a game driven by star power, pressure to win and greater information at your fingertips. &ellipses; All of those dynamics contribute to the coaching carousel.

JM: There were no first-team All-Americans or sure NBA lottery picks in this year's Final Four. With that in mind, is a coach better off with recruiting guys who will be together for a few years or are one-and-done talents too good to pass up?

CK: This was different, but it was different for just this year. Every Final Four is different, and I try to look at each one as unique, examine it on its own merits rather than looking for trends.

Now, there are other things on the horizon. The NBA's collective bargaining agreement is expiring in 2011. We don't know where we're headed there, whether they'll change the rule or not. There's been some speculation they could allow high school kids to make the jump again, but if they chose to go to college they'd have to stay for two or three years. Whatever happens &ellipses; will have an impact.

... If I were a coach, my philosophy would be this: I would want to recruit the highest caliber student-athlete I could. If it happened to be a (one-and-done), I would look at it as my job to help him as much as I could while he was there, as long as he was committed. You recruit him with honesty and integrity. My approach would be at a level where you're not losing sight of trying to develop those young men to the best of your and the best of their ability. You want them to become better people &ellipses; some kids would fit into that mold, and some won't.

JM: There are rumors about big conferences expanding. How would that affect college basketball?

CK: We've already seen that. The bigger conferences get even bigger and stronger. We've not had a non-power conference national champion since when? You have to go back to 1990 with UNLV. Their conference isn't a power conference, but they were a big-time program. Same with Louisville in '86, when they were still in the Metro. ...

The landscape is changing, and you will have opportunities for Gonzagas and Butlers and Xaviers, but those places aren't built for sustained championships year in and year out. It certainly makes the tournament more exciting when they're good &ellipses; but the higher profile kids are going to be looking at places like Duke and Carolina and Kentucky.

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com