In reply to: Thanks-I couldn't find it on ESPN. This is a good thing. * posted by Domerduck
The Committee on Academics had been reviewing transfers for quite some time and had come up with a concept that would allow a student-athlete to transfer and not sit a year only if he or she had a certain GPA, likely in the 3.2 range. This concept would have applied to all sports, so some basketball, football, and baseball players would have now been able to transfer and be immediately eligible, while some soccer, track, volleyball, etc. players would have to sit for the first time after transfer. This Committee had a ton of data to support their concept, which was gaining quite a bit of traction.
Then the Rice Commission on Men's College Basketball casually dropped that they thought the NCAA should continue to require transfers to sit a year. Completely unprompted and completely outside their lane of review, this toss-in cut the legs out from the Committee on Academics and killed that concept.
The real irony is that the Commission, by recommending no change to the transfer rule, along with the NCAA's waiver precedent, led to more transfers in basketball through continued abuse of the waiver process, than if the Committee's GPA concept was adopted.
unwarranted "bad" grades so none of their players could ever transfer
When a school like UNC can give grades for an imaginary class, I don't trust any of these schools to not game the system
I think sitting out a year is the best policy with very very few waivers (and yes, I'm not sure I would have given Jess Shepard a waiver - but of course I don't know all the details)