Western Kentucky Announces Mitchell Robinson is Suspended Indefinitely

So this continues to be a complete and utter shit show in Bowling Green as Jeff Goodman lays out here in a series of tweets. I’ve blogged about it a handful of times, Robinson, a 5-star recruit and top-10 prospect, followed Stansbury from Texas A&M to WKU. On top of that Stansbury had Shammond Williams, who just so happens to be Robinson’s godfather, on his staff as an assistant coach. Williams left the staff a month ago or so and then rumors started to swirl about Robinson playing overseas or transferring. That got put to bed when he showed up on campus and was seen working out and attending classes. Then on Friday he had left campus and now this.

First off, not sure how you can suspend someone who isn’t on the team anymore. Regardless, pretty hilarious as this is a Michael Scott type move when Tony goes to quit during ‘The Merger’ and Michael tells him ‘you can’t quit because you’re fired.’

So now here we are. Late in the offseason as there’s a couple of options here. Robinson can sit out and transfer, which is just insane as he’s a lottery pick in the NBA Draft. That means he could in theory sit out this year and declare for the draft despite never playing a game – which is something to not rule out. There’s the chance he ends up at WKU, which seems highly unlikely at this point. He could also go play overseas, which seems like the smart thing so he gets some experience under his belt, money and can still declare for the Draft next year.

This is one of the worst parts of the National Letter of Intent though, something a guy like Robinson should never sign. We’ve seen players in the past refuse to sign and it work out just fine, which is what everyone should do. It leaves your commitment as a verbal, meaning you can easily get out of it to attend another school. Brandon Knight never signed a NLOI when head went to Kentucky. It just takes all the power away from you and into the NCAA/school. Sure, it’s a double-edged sword as you could in theory get recruited over, but if you’re a top-10 guy, that’s not happening.

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So in the meantime let’s see what happens to Robinson. I’m sure there will be a push for him to go to LSU, but you can bet Stansbury will block that simply out of pettiness of this whole thing. My guess is he ends up overseas and in the NBA in a year.