UK Star Skal Labissiere Finally Cleared To Play...Caleb Swanigan, Not So Much, As The NCAA Continues to be a Joke
Wildcat Nation – News broke this evening that Kentucky Wildcat big man, Skal Labissiere, is eligible to play for the Wildcats this season according to Shams Charania of Yahoo! Sports. The highly touted recruit and potential number one draft pick in the 2016 NBA Draft was being investigated by the NCAA.
Labissiere was ruled ineligible by the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association after trying to transfer before his senior season of high school. Labissiere then played for an upstart school called “Reach Your Dreams,” which was started by his guardian Gerald Hamilton, who helped bring Labissiere to the United States from Haiti.
Hamilton, his guardian, was a reason behind the NCAA investigation, according to a report by CBSSports after he allegedly asked how to obtain money off of Labisiere while he was still in high school.
“It was Gerald Hamilton,” Easterwood told CBSSports.com. “He wanted to talk, and one of the things he asked me was, ‘How can I make money off of a basketball player?’”
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Shocking news everyone. The NCAA continues to be a fucking joke of an organization and now we’re seeing it in the college basketball world and the clearing of players eligibility. That’s what we’ll discuss in the roundup of recent college basketball news.
Over the weekend Kentucky fans were able to take a massive sigh of relief as star center Skal Labissiere was cleared to play after an NCAA investigation into his guardian Gerald Hamilton and how he handled his recruitment and high school career. The rumor was Hamilton asked at least one AAU coach on ‘how he could make money off a basketball player.’ Well, let me answer that for you first off. You just be friends with Labissiere, as he’s the likely No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft – at worst No. 2 behind Ben Simmons.
Second off, if that’s how the guardian is handling the situation, in no way should a player be penalized for an older person being a dumbass. /End rant.
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So, what does this mean for Kentucky? Well, they get a helluva talent in Labissiere, who is 6’11” and can stretch the floor. He’s not your prototypical center where he’ll beat you up in the post and bang down low, instead he wants to be you off the dribble and use finesse to get a shot up in the lane. However, defensively he’s traditional in the sense he’s a rim protector and a strong defender. Having Labissiere on the floor will allow Calipari to run his dribble-drive motion offense, which keeps the floor spread and let his guards, mainly Tyler Ulis, create and have an entire lane to his disposal.
On the flipside Purdue’s McDonald’s All-American Caleb Swanigan has yet to be cleared, as first reported by Bleacher Report’s Jason King yesterday.
The NCAA is investigating the relationship between Swanigan and Roosevelt Barnes, a Purdue alum who adopted Swanigan in 2011, prior to his eighth grade year.
Sounds a little bit like the Blindside? Sure. But, Swanigan was 6’2, 360 pounds while living in a homeless center in Salt Lake City. Let me repeat that. The dude was fucking SIX FEET TWO, 360 POUNDS IN SEVENTH GRADE.
How can the NCAA botch this so bad? It’s something that’s so clear and shouldn’t be investigated with two weeks until the start of the season. Barnes took a homeless kid and monitored his diet and schoolwork, allowing him to become the player he is. I can’t reiterate how much of a fucking joke this is by the NCAA and something that needs to be brought up on a public forum. It’s almost impossible to predict a 360 pound kid would turn into a McDonald’s All-American, but Swanigan was able to shed the weight and turn into that kind of player.
#FreeBiggie
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Image via ESPN.com