Will Olivier Sarr be eligible to play at Kentucky? NCAA rules expert discusses the case.
The possible answer to Kentucky’s glaring need for frontcourt help on the basketball court next season will bring with him a question of whether he’ll actually play for the Wildcats at all.
Olivier Sarr — a 7-foot center from France — announced Wednesday that he would transfer from Wake Forest to Kentucky to play his final season of college basketball. The addition of Sarr — widely regarded as the top transfer in all of college basketball this offseason — seemingly solved John Calipari’s problem of a lack of dominant post players on the 2020-21 roster.
UK had already signed four-star power forward recruits Isaiah Jackson and Lance Ware, but the Cats had no scholarship post players beyond that duo, no true center, and — with the departures of Nick Richards, EJ Montgomery and Nate Sestina — a major need for more help in the paint.
There seemed to be a general assumption among some UK fans and others that follow college basketball that Sarr, who was a junior this past season and will not be a graduate transfer, would be immediately eligible to play at Kentucky next season simply because Wake Forest had fired his coach, Danny Manning.
NCAA rules regarding traditional transfers offer no such assurances that players like Sarr would be immediately eligible under such circumstances, however, and there have been plenty of cases in recent years of players who leave a program when their head coach is fired and still have to sit out the following season.
There are some mitigating circumstances related to Sarr’s case that could help him achieve immediate eligibility next season. In an interview with ESPN last week, the 21-year-old said he intended to enter his name in the NBA Draft but that Manning had talked him into staying one more year at Wake Forest to improve his game. Wake Forest then fired Manning the day before the deadline for college underclassmen to enter the draft, and that didn’t give Sarr enough time to make an informed decision on what to do next.
Rick Allen, the founder of Informed Athlete, a service that helps college athletes navigate the NCAA rules and transfer process, told the Herald-Leader on Thursday that he couldn’t think of a past transfer case comparable to Sarr’s, where the head coach was fired so close to the deadline to enter the draft.
“Yeah, that one is a little bit different,” said Allen, who worked for more than 25 years in the compliance offices at Illinois and Oklahoma State. “I can’t say I’ve heard of that specific type of situation before.”
If Sarr’s case for immediate eligibility hinges on his past conversations with Manning, that might not be enough in what could be a lengthy process for obtaining a waiver to play next season.
NCAA’s transfer waiver process
The NCAA has set guidelines for student-athletes who transfer from one school to another and want to be cleared to play right away for their new college.
In Sarr’s case, Kentucky will submit a waiver that documents circumstances outside of his control that necessitated his transfer from Wake Forest with a request that he be allowed to play next season.
The NCAA told the Herald-Leader on Thursday that a transfer does not have to be officially enrolled at his new school in order for that school to submit the waiver, and the Herald-Leader was also told Thursday that UK has already begun preparing Sarr’s case for immediate eligibility.
Once the waiver is submitted, it will be reviewed by NCAA staff, which will either approve or deny the request. The typical turnaround time for a decision is 21 days, though an NCAA spokeswoman told the Herald-Leader that “every case is different and decided based on the facts presented.”
If the initial review of Sarr’s waiver meets with approval for immediate eligibility, the case is closed and Sarr will play for the Cats next season. If it’s denied, UK would have a few options.
Kentucky could accept the ruling and have Sarr sit next season. That won’t happen. Sarr is seen as a major part of the Wildcats’ 2020-21 roster, and he has already said he will explore professional opportunities rather than sit out a year as a college transfer.
UK could also offer new information in the case and request a reconsideration for Sarr’s immediate eligibility. The school would have 30 days after the initial ruling to do that, which would basically start the process all over again (assuming any new information became available).
Lastly, UK could request an appeal — again, within 30 days of the initial ruling — and the case would go to the Division I Committee for Legislative Relief, a decision-making body comprised of seven members from D-I schools and conferences. (No one currently on that committee is affiliated with UK, Wake Forest, or an official of the SEC or ACC league office). The decision made by that committee would be deemed final, binding and not subject to any further review.
Support from Wake Forest
Kentucky’s task of getting Sarr eligible to play next season is far from a sure thing.
The NCAA’s guiding principles regarding transfer waivers includes a detailed list outlining 13 common circumstances for such waivers to be granted. That list does not mention coaching changes at all. In fact, additional language from the NCAA specifically says transfers who leave a school that underwent a coaching change may have to sit out a season unless they can meet an exception to be granted immediate eligibility.
Allen said the most common such circumstance is when a player is told he’s no longer wanted back on the team and would have no opportunity to play for the new coach at that school.
“But that’s certainly not the case in this young man’s situation,” he said of Sarr.
Indeed, new Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes made keeping Sarr in the program a major priority when he was hired last week, publicly stating his desire for Sarr to remain with the Demon Deacons and meeting with the player and his family in attempts to try and get him to stay. Forbes even lobbed a shot at UK’s academic status. “Why would you go to Wake for three years, put all that time in to get this prestigious degree, and end up getting your degree at a place like Kentucky?” he said on a local radio show.
Allen said it “would definitely have a big impact” if Wake Forest told the NCAA that Sarr would not have a spot on next season’s roster and supported his case for immediate eligibility at UK on that basis. But, since Forbes has publicly made it clear he wanted to keep Sarr — and since Sarr likely would have been among the best players in the ACC next season — such a statement now would clearly be disingenuous.
Wake Forest could also simply wish Sarr well in his future endeavors, show the NCAA that he’s leaving in good standing, and offer its support for his immediate eligibility at UK as a show of good faith. That would be a nice gesture, but it probably wouldn’t accomplish much on its own.
“I don’t think that’s going to be enough,” Allen said.
‘Free transfer’ rule and coronavirus
If the NCAA had proceeded with the idea of granting every traditional transfer a one-time exception to switch schools and retain immediate eligibility, UK and Sarr would not be in this situation.
Such a change to the waiver process appeared on track to passage and implementation for the 2020-21 school year until the NCAA’s Board of Governors recommended last week that the changes not be approved this year. There will be a final ruling by the Division I Council soon, but the so-called “free transfer” rule now seems unlikely to pass in time for next basketball season.
It’s been speculated that the coronavirus pandemic could lead the NCAA to be more lenient in transfer waiver decisions this offseason, but Allen thinks the opposite might be true, in some cases. He said the decision to put the free transfer rule on hold might have been a result of an uptick in transfers — some resulting from the uncertainty over the pandemic — and the NCAA might not have wanted to encourage even more athletes to transfer with this change in policy. “I do think it had an impact,” he said.
The NCAA board did recommend that the transfer waiver process be “sensitive to student-athlete well-being, especially those impacted by COVID-19” during this time. That could prove beneficial to players transferring to schools that are closer to their family members — such as California native Johnny Juzang leaving UK for UCLA — but it would have no bearing on Sarr, a native of France.
“I just have to think the Board of Governors thought, ‘On top of everything else that’s going on, we shouldn’t be approving a new waiver opportunity that encourages even more kids to be transferring from one school to another,’” Allen said.
Sarr’s case doesn’t explicitly fall under any of the other 13 categories outlined in the NCAA principles on transfer waivers, many of which have to do with moving closer to family or the lack of opportunity at the player’s former school.
That probably makes Sarr’s bid for immediate eligibility something of an uphill battle.
Sarr’s path to eligibility
Some big names in college basketball — such as Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas — have already come out publicly in support of the NCAA allowing Sarr to play next season on the basis that Manning was fired as Wake Forest’s head coach.
Allen acknowledged that such shows of support from influential figures within the sport can have a positive effect “in some cases,” but he noted again that there’s nothing in the NCAA’s actual rules that says a returning player should be granted immediate eligibility based on a coaching change alone.
Sarr’s status as a student — he was an ACC all-academic selection last year — also can only help his case. “I don’t know how big that one factor will be, but it definitely is a factor that they will take into consideration, I think,” Allen said.
But being a good student with public support probably won’t be enough, even with the circumstances of Manning’s firing, and even if Manning is willing to provide information corroborating Sarr’s story and thought process when originally deciding to stay at Wake Forest.
“Given the fact that the new Wake Forest coaching staff has made plenty of public statements that they definitely want the player, and given the fact that the only action outside of his control was Wake Forest letting Danny Manning go — given those factors, I am not optimistic that his waiver would be approved,” Allen said.
“Because, again, the NCAA, in approving these things, they like to be able to point to, ‘This action was outside of the athlete’s control. The athlete had no way to do anything different.’ And (Sarr) could have said, ‘Thanks, Coach Manning, I really appreciate it, but me and my family are going to go ahead and declare anyway.’ And he still could have come back to school (before the withdrawal deadline). Without any other action that’s outside of his control, I wouldn’t be optimistic that it will be approved.”
Kentucky fans will read that as a grim assessment of Sarr’s situation, but it’s not exactly case closed.
Allen acknowledged that we can speculate on how the coronavirus pandemic will affect transfer waivers, but — until the NCAA actually shows its hand with rulings in such cases — the outcomes remain unknown. He also said Kentucky’s status as “one of the NCAA’s cash cows” in college basketball — a major revenue-generating sport — could help Sarr’s case.
And then there’s the unknown.
What has been shared publicly so far might not be everything that goes into Kentucky’s request for a transfer waiver. There could be additional factors that UK can use to show Sarr should be able to compete right away for the Wildcats.
“But based on the information that’s out there, I wouldn’t be optimistic,” Allen said.
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 5:48 PM.
