During her time as U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice had to navigate the quagmire that is Washington, D.C. One wonders whether she found the world of college basketball to be even more of a swamp.

Rice headed a commission formed to recommend solutions to rampant corruption in NCAA basketball. Recently the panel released a list of suggestions. Most NCAA and higher education officials seemed receptive.

The idea is to ensure that college and university basketball remains an amateur sport. At too many schools, including some of the major basketball powers, it has not been so.

Players are paid under the table in a variety of ways. Agents are bribed to steer them their clients to certain schools. Sellers of some products make under-the-table arrangements with players.

It is all so unsavory and widespread that some have suggested the way out is to professionalize college basketball. Players should be paid, it has been said. Amateurism is an anachronism, they say, at least the way it exists in the NCAA.

Rice and members of her commission consider a crackdown to recover the sport’s amateur nature is worthwhile.

For it to succeed, college and university officials will have to buy into the system as enforcers. On too many campuses, secret deals have been common knowledge.

That means buy-in by fans and donors to colleges and universities, too.

The Rice commission’s best known recommendation is to end the “one-and-done” rule that makes players go to college for at least one year before entering the NBA draft. There has been talk that high school seniors could start entering the NBA draft as early as 2020, although that would have to be negotiated between the NBA and its players union.

That’s how it works in baseball and hockey. Players who only want to turn pro and don’t want to go to college get drafted out of high school nd enter the minor leagues. But the NBA doesn’t really have a minor league; neither does the NFL. Instead of investing their own money in developing their players, instead of taking chances on investing in teenagers, they let colleges do that.

Since the players are essentially pros-in-waiting, forced to bide their time while not formally getting paid, a lively black market has taken root.

As we have said in the past, the NBA and NFL could help the situation by establishing minor leagues so top-tier players who don’t want to go to college don’t have to. God knows the leagues could afford to do so.

There is also the Olympic option, in which athletes can get paid by sponsors, have managers and profit from their likenesses. They are supposedly amateur, but not really.

Ultimately, the Rice commission’s work will be a dismal failure unless all involved start taking seriously the old injunction about the important thing being how you play the game.