The NCAA failed by not ruling on Kansas freshman Billy Preston
Kansas freshman and former five-star prospect Billy Preston has signed a contract to play professionally with BC Ikogea in Bosnia his mother Nicole Player confirmed to Rivals.com.
Preston's eligibility was called into question in mid November. Since then Preston has been waiting from the NCAA to hear whether or not he would be eligible to play for the Jayhawks.
That it takes this long for the NCAA to make a decision regarding Preston -- or any other prospect -- is a failure.
I'm not here to blast the NCAA and the people who work there. During my time in the recruiting business I've met several people who work there and I run across them on a regular basis during my travels. The people I run across are hard working and just like me they are trying to do their job to the best of their ability.
The climate around amateur athletics has changed rapidly over the years and it has never been more evident than now. Last fall the FBI investigation into college basketball corruption hit and gave the world a glimpse behind the curtain and a look at the shadier side of recruiting, college athletics and high level youth sports. It was pretty illustrative of just how many factors there can be with players when it comes to determining eligibility.
It's not easy. I get that. Any reasonable person gets that.
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What I don't get is why it takes nearly two and a half months to make a decision. My dad would say that the time had come for the NCAA to, well you know, or get off the pot.
It's true that exactly what the NCAA was looking into in Preston's case has never been made public, but in doing background on this I feel pretty good in saying that Preston and his family were fully cooperative with the NCAA and that they gave them any and all information requested.
While the NCAA pondered Preston's future, the decorated freshman watched from the sideline and was an active participant on the bench. He cheered on his teammates, he checked fouls for coaches and when freshman teammate Silvio De Sousa was recently cleared by the NCAA after an early enrollment, Preston was the first to congratulate him.
Preston's coach Bill Self faced the media countless times and said over and over that they hoped to hear something from the NCAA sooner than later. I can't even imagine how much it must have annoyed Self to have to keep answering the same questions and giving the same answer. His frustration was likely only second to that felt by Preston and his family.
At some point it all became comical and I lost the ability to see where the NCAA was serving their member institutions or the student athletes making them millions and millions of dollars. That's where I have the problem.
Enough time has passed that there's no reasonable explanation for why a decision regarding Preston's eligibility was never rendered. Guilty or not guilty, at some point the NCAA owed a yes or no answer to Preston. Instead it essentially held him, his family and Kansas hostage to the situation.
With no light appearing at the end of tunnel, Billy Preston and his family took the matter into their own hands. Now he's heading off to Bosnia because he feels turning professional was his best option. It's just too bad that he couldn't have made this decision without getting an actual answer from the NCAA so that he could fully consider all of his options.
