Syracuse big Chinoso Obokoh can lose year of eligibility because of semantics
By Joe Nardone
Mar 20, 2014; Buffalo, NY, USA; Syracuse Orange head coach Jim Boeheim talks to the media after a men
Chinoso Obokoh played exactly zero seconds for the Syracuse Orange last season. Instead, the Nigerian born basketball player was redshirted. A common practice for post players who need time to develop, acclimate and do other things that would make his transition to college and the states as smooth as a baby’s bottom.
Welp, the NCAA doesn’t care about transition times or the fact that Obokoh’s high school messed up his class placement when he arrived to America. Somehow, I guess, Obokoh needs to be punished for mistakes made by others or something.
Likely something, but the NCAA kicks semantics right in the gut when it comes to things like common sense.
Bishop Kearney, Obokoh’s high school, may have put him in the wrong grade when he arrived stateside. The school placed him as a freshman, while it is being proposed that he should have been a sophomore. Either way, something that has very little do to with Chinoso Obokoh doing anything wrong on his end.
Because the NCAA loves to interject itself in things that are iffy rules to begin with, Obokoh is probably going to lose a year of college eligibility as a result of his high school’s mistake.
Or, really, the NCAA punishing a powerless kid for another’s mistake. You know, the NCAA being the NCAA.
Syracuse can appeal the decision, but has yet to do so.
Good for you, NCAA. Way to kick a player in the gut because bad rules and someone else’s mistake. I believe you guys call it a workday.