Why Andre Drummond counts against UConn's scholarship total but Michael Bradley doesn't

Late last night, we posted a column on how the only person that has been -- or will be -- negatively effected by the NCAA's scholarship reductions at UConn is Michael Bradley.

Long story short, UConn is at their maximum allotment of scholarship players because, thanks to the Nate Miles sanctions and two scholarships lost due to their low APR, they are only allowed 10 this year. But Andre Drummond, who is going to be a lottery pick whenever he decides to head to the NBA Draft, wants to go to UConn, so in order for the Huskies to make room for him, they need a player currently on scholarship to no longer be on scholarship.

That player has to be Michael Bradley because, according to the NCAA rulebook, he wasn't technically a recruited player. Drummond was. So was everyone else on the UConn roster. And if you are technically a recruited player, than you count against the scholarship limit regardless of whether or not you are on scholarship. That's why Drummond can't simply pay his own way.

The question that I got asked, however, was what makes you technically a recruited player? And with a hat-tip to the ByLawBlog's John Infante, I give you Rule 15.02.8:

For purposes of Bylaw 15, a recruited student-athlete is a student-athlete who, as a prospective student-athlete: (Adopted: 1/15/11 effective 8/1/11)

(a) Was provided an official visit to the institution's campus;

(b) Had an arranged, in-person, off-campus encounter with a member of the institution's coaching staff (including a coach's arranged, in-person, off-campus encounter with the prospective student-athlete or the prospective student-athlete's parents, relatives or legal guardians); or

(c) Was issued a National Letter of Intent or a written offer of athletically related financial aid by the institution for a regular academic term.

This is where it gets tricky.

Drummond was recruited by UConn, meaning that he is going to count towards their scholarship limit regardless of whether or not he is actually on scholarship. Bradley, however, was also "recruited" to UConn. He took an official visit and actually signed a letter of intent.

But there is a way around that thanks to Rule 15.5.1.2.1, which states that "a student-athlete who was recruited ... and whose only source of institutional financial aid is academic aid based solely on the recipient's academic record at the certifying institution, awarded independently of athletics interests and in amounts consistent with the pattern of all such awards made by the institution, may compete without counting in the institution's financial aid team limits, provided he or she has completed at least one academic year of full-time enrollment at the certifying institution and has achieved a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.000 (on a 4.000 scale) at the certifying institution."

So there you go.

Since Bradley has complete one academic year at UConn, if he is carrying a GPA above a 3.0 he can get an exception that says that the financial aid he receives won't count against UConn's scholarship total. And given the fact that Bradley spent most of his teenage years in a group home, if he truly does have a 3.0, I don't think it will be difficult for UConn to find a way to get the cost of his education covered.

Jim Calhoun just took the NCAA's cookies.
Continue reading...

The only person hurt by the NCAA's sanction against UConn? Michael Bradley

(Ed. Note: While I was finishing up this column, Dan Wolken of The Daily decided to go off on the NCAA Managing Director of Digital Communications, Ronnie Ramos. Poor timing on our part, but I strongly urge you to go back and read through Wolken's tweets. It got ugly.)

For UConn fans, it will be tough to top what has happened in the last six months.

A surprise run to the Big East title. An even more surprising run to the national title. The emergence of Jeremy Lamb as a star-in-the-making. The late-addition of Deandre Daniels. The even-later addition of Andre Drummond. I'm not sure anyone should be happy about a man losing his job, but if Jeff Hathaway getting forced out ensures Jim Calhoun's return, well, then you can throw that one on the list as well.


For the players on the back-end of the UConn roster, the situation is quite a bit different.

You see, the way the NCAA works is that an athletic scholarship is good for a year. They are given out on July 1st, and once a player has received his scholarship, it cannot be taken away until July 1st of the next year. UConn currently has 10 players on scholarship, but since they were docked three scholarships for this season -- one for the violations committed when recruiting Nate Miles and two for their low APR -- the Huskies are currently at their maximum in terms of scholarship players.

In other words, the Huskies cannot add another scholarship player unless one of their players currently on scholarship "voluntarily" decides give up theirs and become a walk-on. Since Drummond was recruited by the Huskies, he cannot count as a walk-on player. Even if he were to pay his own way at the school, he will count against UConn's scholarship total. And given their current APR score, UConn also cannot afford to do what teams in this situation usually do and run off a player, forcing him to transfer. That will drop their APR even further.

The result is that UConn now finds themselves in the difficult position of having to "ask" either Niels Giffey or Enosch Wolf to give up their scholarship and return to Germany to play professionally or "asking" redshirt freshman Michael Bradley, a Tennessee native, to give up his scholarship, apply for loans and financial aid packages, and pay his own way for at least one season. According to NCAA bylaws, Bradley wasn't technically recruited by the Huskies, meaning that he will not count against their scholarship numbers should he pay his own way to school.

As of yesterday, no decision had yet been made.

(As an aside, its fitting that UConn AD Jeff Hathaway was forced to resign earlier this month. Could it be that he stood in the way of Calhoun's efforts to get Drummond into school? Is that why it took so long for Drummond to actually make the decision to attend UConn? He had to wait until Calhoun got the OK from his bosses that they could try and pull this scheme off?)

Personally, I don't have as big of a problem with running players off as others do. I've written about it extensively on two different occasions -- here and here -- so I won't elaborate too much in this space, but essentially what has happened is that whoever gives up their scholarship will have gotten cut. It sucks, I've been there. And I certainly don't envy being the player in that situation. But this is also big-time college basketball. As it is with every level of sport beyond your hometown's CYO leagues, if you aren't good enough to make the team, you get cut.

But the Bradley situation is slightly different. He's not being run-off the team. He's not being "asked" to transfer to a different school where he'll be put back on scholarship. He's being "asked" by the staff at UConn to either accept the fact that he no longer as a scholarship or be the person standing in the way of Andre Drummond joining the Huskies.

And all this is happening days before the start of the fall semester.

That is a terrible position for UConn to put a kid and that kid's family in.


Assuming that Bradley "volunteers" to give up his scholarship, there is one of two ways that this plays out. Either he is forced to pay some or all of the $42,594 it would cost a student from Tennessee to attend UConn, or the financial aid Bradley receives is going to force another student that needs that money to attend UConn to be forced to go to elsewhere. $42,594 is not a small amount of money, especially for a kid that spent the majority of his teenage years in a group home.

Nick Fasulo of Searching For Billy Edelin asks a very good question -- how is this acceptable? How is this allowed to happen?

Frankly, its because the NCAA is utterly toothless.

If Bradley is forced to go off scholarship, most of the anger is probably going to be directed at Calhoun, his staff and the UConn administration that allowed it to happen. And it should. I'm not trying to deflect that anger. If their staff doesn't find some way for Bradley to attend the school for free (and if you click the link above, he should theoretically qualify for complete financial aid), than I fail to see how Calhoun can go into a living room and tell a family that he has their son's best interests in mind and have them believe it.

And I fail to see how anyone in the state of Connecticut can support this move.

But think about this: the entire reason that UConn is in this situation is that they were caught redhanded using a certified agent to recruit a player to their school -- a player that lasted a month before he was kicked out for violating a restraining order in 16 minutes -- and because their program has an embarrassingly low APR score. But instead of actually being punished, UConn won the 2010 national title and landed one of the best recruits in the country.

And (I'm bolding this because the emphasis shouldn't be lost on you) the result of those scholarship reductions for poor academic performance is that a player that grew up in a group home, precisely the kind of kid that an athletic scholarship should be used on, is being taken off scholarship to make room for a one-and-done lottery pick.

That's fucking pathetic. Its pathetic that UConn would pull this stunt, but its even worse that the NCAA -- whose first concern is that these "student"-athletes get an education -- can and will allow it to happen.

The only person that the NCAA's sanctions against UConn actually negatively affected was the kid that truly needed the scholarship in the first place. That literally goes against everything that the NCAA stands for in the first place.

Think about that the next time the NCAA lauds amateurism and promotes their "student"-athletes while cashing eight and nine figure checks.

What makes this even more mind-blowing is that there is a good chance that Bradley will qualify for a very large chunk, if not complete, financial aid from the University. I mean, hell, we're talking about a kid that grew up in a group home! What more does the financial aid office need to see? And if that is the case, than Calhoun can kick his feet up and laugh. He can laugh at the fact that he was able to thumb his nose at the NCAA, keep a poor kid from paying anything while playing basketball at UConn and bringing in Drummond despite having no scholarships available.

One of these days, it will be nice to see the NCAA's enforcement staff actually be able to, you know, enforce stuff.
Continue reading...