"My rule was I wouldn't recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house.
That's not my world. My world was a cracked sidewalk." —Al McGuire

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Today is August 1

Do you know who your 13 scholarship players are for the 2007-2008 Marquette Golden Eagles?

Freshman orientation starts three weeks from today on August 22. Will Trevor Mbakwe and/or Damian Saunders be there? It appears that both players' transcripts are going under the microscope, and Saunders still has the legal issue to resolve.

What is the fate of Trend Blackledge? MU's second summer session concludes on August 11 or 18 (depending on the program) - - but does it really take three academic semesters (spring 07, summer I and summer II) to make a final determination about his academic eligibility and progress towards a degree? Apparently so.

This is all beginning to feel like a twisted game of Three-card Monte.

3 comments:

MUWarrior71 said...

To answer your question, it does not take three semester/summer sessions to determine eligibility. The NCAA has clear guidelines how much progress has to be made toward a degree by a certain time. A summer session helps anyone catch up if s/he is behind. So...while a semester is important, the entire school year is more important. For a basketball player, s/he must be in good NCAA standing in order to play. However, s/he could drop courses after the end of the season and therefore not be making sufficient progress, so summer school gives that athlete an opportunity to be on schedule by time the season starts.

On the other hand, and I am only trusting my memory, I thought Trend was not meeting Marquette's standards which implies he was meeting NCAA standards.

Quite honestly, I hope he makes it and let the chips fall as they may with someone else.

TB said...

re: Trend meeting NCAA specs but not MU's - - I believe that was the case. Here's TC's thoughts from then:

"We don't sign players to have them remain eligible. We sign them to graduate. I would say if he's with us next year we're looking at a redshirt because he needs to be in a position to graduate from here."

Trend was ruled ineligible by MU on February 19 -- one month into the spring semester. NCAA requirements are based on courses completed by semester ..... so it appears that Trend's issue is with MU's standards rather than the NCAA's

MUWarrior71 said...

Very interesting addition NY. If Trend should not graduate, that is a minus in the NCAA points system and those situations have to be avoided if at all possible.mxznigw