Walter Pitchford gets his release

Twice in the last month we have discussed the plight of Walter Pitchford, Jr., a 6'10" senior that had signed with DePaul before Oliver Purnell became the head coach.

Well, Pitchford didn't want to play for Purnell and asked for a release from his LOI. He didn't get it. He appealed to the NCAA for a release, but they denied his request as well.

But over the weekend, Pitchford finally got the good news he was waiting for, as Purnell had made the decision to release Pitchford from his LOI. (For those scoring at home, Adam Zagoria had the scoop.) I'm not sure what finally persuaded Purnell and/or the DePaul athletics department to let Pitchford go, but based on a ESPN Chicago report just nine hours earlier, it seems as if Purnell still did not want to let Pitchford go:

"The bottom line of the difference here is Walter Pitchford signed with DePaul, and when I got to DePaul in conversations with he and his dad, he re-committed to DePaul. And then mysteriously, within a couple days of tremendous meetings on campus and within days of schools starting to call us about releases and so on and so forth, among a lot of other concerns that we had during that process, they wanted a release. We had some concerns about that. We simply want that process to play out, so we can have our concerns mediated."
...
"We certainly have no ill feelings toward Walter Pitchford. We don't want to hold him back, but at the same time we got a basketball program to run, and you have to run that with integrity. ... He's got to want to be here. He's got to do certain things to be here like any kid. Those are two absolutes."

So, yeah, Purnell really didn't want to lose this kid, even going as far as to insinuate that Pitchford may have been tampered with. We don't know what happened, but Purnell comes off sounding like sour grapes.

Regardless of what Purnell believes, Pitchford finally did get his release and will be allowed to attend a different school without having to sit out a year and lose a year of eligibility.

According to his father, Pitchford is not yet sure where he is headed, but given the late date -- most hoopsters have already enrolled in summer classes -- we should be finding out pretty soon where Pitchford will be playing next year.