New York ? It wasn’t hard for college basketball coaches to get to know NCAA president Myles Brand.

He went and met them.

The former president of Indiana took over his new position in January 2003. Ten months later, he was asking the basketball coaches what they needed from the governing organization to help the sport.

Wednesday, at a news conference at Madison Square Garden, Brand, three of college basketball’s most prominent coaches and others involved in athletic administration revealed what they think is the answer — the College Basketball Partnership.

The working group of about 25 already has met twice — June in New York and October in Chicago — and the next session will be at the Final Four in St. Louis. It is designed to address the challenges and opportunities facing the sport, which has an $11 billion contract for the rights to its postseason tournament.

“This is our game, and we’re proud of what it is and what it will be,” Brand said. “This is an effort to focus on the future of our game.”

Brand approached Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson, then the president of the Overland Park-based National Association of Basketball Coaches, in October 2003 about attending the mandatory summit the organization had called to address ethics issues.

“It was a big moment for us to have the NCAA president attend our meeting and his entire staff was there, and that was historic. We had never had that happen at one of our meetings,” Sampson said. “That was the start of what is a unique partnership. That was the initial step in this making our game better. Our voice is being heard now, and that’s what is so encouraging.”

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said this wasn’t just about coaches’ wishes.

“In the past, the legislation we would want would be coaches’ ideas only with no modification, no strategy, no plan,” Boeheim said.

He then brought up last April’s repealing of the 5-8 rule, which limited basketball programs to signing no more than five recruits in any one class, and no more than eight in two successive years. The coaches had been adamant in saying it hurt programs and players.

“The legislation was brought forward because Dr. Brand asked us about it and because he and his staff worked at it and looked at it,” Boeheim said. “It’s the cooperation we’ve had on that legislation that we want to take forward with this group. It’s no longer us against them. It was my first 30 years of coaching, and that was the wrong way to get anything done, and it’s all changed the last two years.”

The group didn’t get into specifics of what the partnership might go after next, although the current legislative changes to coaches’ access to players and recruiting rules certainly will be addressed.