NEW YORK (AP) — NCAA President Mark Emmert says he is glad the Big Ten has sparked a debate about freshmen ineligibility, even though it is an idea fraught with potential problems.

Emmert spoke at a meeting of Associated Press Sports Editors on Thursday.

He says the NCAA helped Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany with the conference’s recent white paper on a so-called year of readiness for freshman football and men’s basketball players.

Emmert says freshmen ineligibility could be a way to close the gap between those student-athletes who enter college lagging behind the rest of the student body academically.

Emmert says the question that needs to be addressed is: Are students sufficiently serious about being students as well as athletes and are they prepared to be successful as students?