Cal took a risk on a player who has talent when he wants to play but someone with personal issues that he just can't get away from. I won't publicly call out someone’s flaws but it is sad to see someone who can't get it together and play for UK. How many of us would cherish and love to suit up for UK and to see anyone not cherish it enough to get his life together is sad to see.
Dodson has already redshirted a year before playing a year at his juco. This means him sitting out this year; he would be giving up his junior year status. You are given five years to complete your four years unless you are injured and are granted a medical redshirt. If he chooses to sit out this year and play some place next year, he would still be a senior.
The only way he could use his junior season is if he transferred quickly to a Div. II or smaller school that does not require a sitting out a year to play.
-Ok, now the Kanter situation. For those who did not read Big Blue Topia yesterday, at this point you shouldn’t be worried about the Kanter situation. Of course the Memphis/Rose situation has proven that you can throw logic out the window with the NCAA but here is why Kanter should be cleared:
Here is the deal, nothing new came out in the New York Times report...nothing...just information the public wasn't aware of. UK was aware of similar figures and reported this to the NCAA a long time ago. The Kanter family has records/receipts showing they spent more money for Kanter's family to be pulled from their home and needing a private tutor to home school him then he was paid by the Turkish league. He wasn’t exactly out buying gold necklaces with any funds he received…
So just to cover his schooling, the Turkish league would need to dish out more money then they did. They weren’t concerned about them paying him more to cover this because his family is wealthy and it wasn’t a big deal.
Players who go to Prep School, get a scholarship similar to college and their tuition is paid for. Many prep schools are crazy expensive and prep school players get money on top of this for expenses.
NCAA told UK weeks ago that if everything they reported is accurate that it looks good. They still needed to investigate more to see if in fact what they reported was everything. UK wanted them to do this. We do not want NCAA to hastily clear Kanter and then evidence comes out later that makes us forfeit wins and possibly banners...nobody wants that.
Hopefully the national attention on this now will not change their ruling…which of course shouldn’t make a difference but it’s the NCAA…
The difference is that Kanter is breaking new ground. He is not your traditional American prep school player. He played in what is the Turkish version of prep school, which in the past was frowned upon by the NCAA.
NCAA has since changed their stance on this and made a new rule, making it much easier for a European player to play college ball. A rule that may one day be known simply as the Kanter Rule. This rule may open up doors into a continent of top talent into the college level. It isn’t fair to make these kids in Europe have to live up to these rules that are easy for Americans to follow but almost impossible for Europeans to do. NCAA is finally seeing the light on this and have changed their rules accordingly.
An article came out from Sports Illustrated stating if what the New York Times said was true, Kanter would be ruled ineligible. I stopped reading when he tried to argue based upon Kilici's case at West Virginia last year. Wrong...things have changed. You can’t defend your argument based upon previous cases. No one has been ruled in a similar situation based upon the current rule.
Since there is no precedent based upon the current rules under NCAA, you can’t state 100% my side of the argument either but when the NCAA is telling UK everything looks good, as long as nothing else is found…that tells us all we can know up to this point.
It wouldn't surprise me to see some slap on the wrist penalty like a up to 5 game suspension, or Kanter having to pay back some money but a ineligible ruling would be surprising unless they find something else.
The NCAA wants to open the door to the Europeans and if the current finds stay true, then the NCAA will not find any easier European case to rule on. If Kanter is ruled ineligible, it again shuts the door on top talent in Europe…which is the opposite of what the NCAA wants.
Of course I must again repear the disclaimer that the NCAA is not known to require any level of logic in rulings...I was also surprised by the Memphis ruling...so I will sit with a little level of nervousness because we are dealing with the NCAA.
I did devote my fantasy football team in honor of the NCAA, my team is called "monkeys with crayons." We will see what happens…
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