Gonzaga coach Mark Few said he's disappointed that the NCAA doesn't have more urgency to get to the bottom of an investigation into alleged pay-for-play schemes and other corruption in college basketball.
Last week, NCAA president Mark Emmert said the investigation wouldn't be completed anytime soon, and potential penalties wouldn't be doled until after this season, at the earliest.
"I'm disappointed. I don't think this is something the NCAA needs to take their time on," Few told Yahoo Sports. "There's teams out here who are competing for Final Fours and national championships and they don't need to stall this thing out. They need to make decisions and roll with it. I think that's on Emmert. Emmert needs to step up and be a leader and make some quicker decisions."
Three men -- Adidas executive James Gatto, former Adidas consultant Merl Code and Christian Dawkins, a runner for former NBA agent Andy Miller -- were found guilty on felony charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud after a three-week criminal trial in federal court in New York in October.
The three men are scheduled for sentencing on March 5.
Two more federal criminal cases involving college basketball corruption are scheduled for trial at U.S. District Court in Manhattan next year. Former Auburn assistant Chuck Person and former NBA referee Rashan Michel are scheduled for trial in February. Person is accused of accepting $91,500 in bribes from a federal cooperating witness to influence Auburn players to sign with certain financial advisers and agents.
Three former assistant coaches -- Arizona's Emanuel "Book" Richardson, Oklahoma State's Lamont Evans and USC's Tony Bland -- are scheduled for trial in April. They are accused of accepting bribes from Code and Dawkins, who are also defendants in that case.
Testimony and evidence during the first trial alleged that coaches from a handful of prominent Division I programs, including Arizona, Creighton, DePaul, Kansas, Louisville, LSU, NC State, Oklahoma State and Oregon, might have committed NCAA violations while dealing with Dawkins and the other men.
NCAA officials have obtained wiretap recordings and other materials that were entered into evidence during the first criminal trial. But much of the evidence from the government's clandestine two-year investigation remains under seal.
Last week, Emmert told reporters in New York that the NCAA must remain respectful of any ongoing criminal investigations.
"This whole incident has cast a very bad light on college basketball, and we need to deal with it as effectively as we can," Emmert told reporters last week after speaking at the Learfield Intercollegiate Athletics Forum. "We're not going to have everything wrapped up by the Final Four, that's for sure, because these trials are still going to be going on."
Few, who spoke to reporters after No. 1 Gonzaga lost to No. 7 Tennessee 76-73 at the Air Force Reserve Jerry Colangelo Classic in Phoenix on Sunday, said the NCAA needs to take action sooner rather than later.
"There's two teams today who were competing who do it right. I know that to be true," Few said, referring to Gonzaga and Tennessee. "And there's a lot of teams who do it right -- the national champions two out of the last three years. There's a lot of great things. This thing is worth saving.
"Everybody's got a value system and you can either adhere to that value system or not and you let it become compromised. [Illegal recruiting is] just something we don't do."