Come on NCAA, what’s taking so long with the Olivier Sarr decision?
Fabien Lovett and Jarrian Jones received good news last week. Both played football at Mississippi State. Lovett, in particular, objected to a tweet from new coach Mike Leach which showed a woman knitting a noose. Both decided to transfer. Both picked Florida State. Last Thursday, both were granted an NCAA transfer waiver to play immediately for the Seminoles.
This begs the question: What’s taking the NCAA so long to make up its mind about Olivier Sarr?
Forget college football’s COVID-19 problem, or Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins mess, or Joe Biden’s VP pick or whether Central Kentucky will see a full day of rain again, the most pressing question on the BBN agenda deals with whether the 7-foot transfer from Wake Forest will be allowed to pull on a Kentucky basketball jersey this winter.
If so, John Calipari’s Cats are a top-five preseason pick with a legitimate shot at a national championship run. That is if the coronavirus pandemic calms enough to allow such a thing as a national championship run in 2020-21. If Sarr is forced to take the sit-out year required of traditional transfers, Kentucky is likely to be just another good team while Sarr is likely to pursue his professional dreams in the NBA or overseas.
Thus, this is not an inconsequential question. And thus, Calipari said recently, he imagines the NCAA will take its time deciding such a “high-profile” case, as if the monolith in Indianapolis doesn’t have a habit of clearing its schedule to make extra time to avoid a big decision.
Except this year, it seems. Perhaps because of COVID, the NCAA has appeared to be a little more generous with its transfer waivers. Lovett/Jones is hardly the only example. Former USC quarterback JT Daniels received a waiver to play right away at Georgia. Former Ohio State basketball guard D.J. Carton received a waiver to play this season at Marquette. Ex-Ohio State wide out Jaelen Gill got the green light to play immediately at Boston College. And the list goes on.
It’s a list that also includes former UK basketball player Johnny Juzang, who packed his bags at season’s end and headed back to California to play at UCLA. The NCAA told Juzang on May 27 that he doesn’t have to wait a year to be barked at in-game by Bruins’ coach Mick Cronin. That’s three weeks after Sarr announced he was transferring to Kentucky.
So how strong is Sarr’s case? Calipari said he was “confident” and considered the case “strong” before adding the disclaimer that you never know what the NCAA is thinking. That’s true, of course. Still, given the NCAA’s recent rulings, denying Sarr a waiver would be something of a surprise.
After all, Sarr left Wake Forest after his coach, Danny Manning, was fired. It says here that the firing of a coach, especially six weeks after the end of the season, should trigger an automatic waiver for any player who wishes to go play at another school for another coach. And Wake Forest’s new coach, Steve Forbes, told ESPN’s Seth Greenberg he supports Sarr’s request for a waiver.
And what about Mark Emmert? Well, there are a lot of things about the NCAA president. But just last week Emmert said he was in favor of the one-time automatic waiver for transfers, something the NCAA considered in the spring only to kick the can to January 2021. Emmert said last week that COVID-19 had something to do with that.
That’s one reason the NCAA has been more lenient in its waivers to this point, and another reason Sarr deserves one. And the sooner the better. Whether or not we have a basketball season, basketball workouts have begun, complete with Calipari in his mandatory mask. (Apparently, his quarantine beard was a little much underneath a face covering.) And there is video of a masked Sarr putting the time into his grind in his new home.
Will it be his home for all of the ’20-21 season? Come on NCAA, we’re waiting.
