The Keon Lawrence saga is over.
After a lengthy deliberation, the NCAA has decided to deny Seton Hall’s request for a hardship waiver for Lawrence, a junior guard who transferred from Missouri to be closer to his home in Newark, N.J. because of numerous family issues.
The waiver would have enabled the 6-foot-2, 175-pound Lawrence to play immediately, but as a result of the denial, he will not play in games for the remainder of the 2008-09 season. Lawrence will continue to practice with the team and Seton Hall (9-6, 0-3 Big East) will go forward with eight scholarship players for the remainder of the season.
shu07grad / January 9, 2009
I think this ends up benefitting us. If he came back this year, what would his impact have been, going 7-11 instead of 5-13? A while back I said I would rather have him for two full years playing with Pope and the rest of the incoming players as opposed to 1.5 seasons.
What does annoy me is that decision itself by the NCAA. It seemed like this was a perfect scenario to be granted the waiver, and the kind of situation the rule was intended for. Who knows what goes on in those NCAA offices…
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Adam Zagoria / January 9, 2009
I agree. Having him for 2 full years is much better than having him suit up in the middle of a hectic Big East season. Every player, no matter how talented, needs to get into shape through non-conference games, not thrust into the pressure-cooked world of the Big East. With him, Pope, possibly Robinson next year (2nd semester) and whoever else ends up signing an NLI, the Pirates should have a talented core.
More on the NCAA and Lawrence coming later with my story on SNY.tv.
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mayersro / January 12, 2009
While waiting moths to hear from the NCAA on this topic, I was shocked to finally hear that Keon was declared ineligible. Of all people that had been requesting hardship waivers, I felt that it would have been a no brainer that he should have recieved one. Upon reading your previous posting about the situations of both Pope and Lawrence, I figured that if not both would recieve one, Lawrence definitely would. Seeing that the reason for the denial was that his mother may have withheld certain info on one of the family members situations seemed a bit ridiculous to me. All of the problems and struggles that him and his family had been going through should outweigh the withholding of information on one of these family members, but apparantly the NCAA didnt feel that way. I was curious as to what you thought about this and who has recieved a hardship waiver recently and why since this wasnt enough for Lawrence to recieve one?
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Adam Zagoria / January 12, 2009
I got the impression that the mother just got sick of answering personal questions about her family members during this investigation.
It’s hard to know exactly what the NCAA is looking for in each case, and also impossible to determine whether they had any prejudice against Seton Hall because the school filed waiver requests for both Lawrence and Pope, while also being involved in the Mike Glover and Melvyn Oliver cases.
Bottom line is this gives Lawrence 2 full years to play for the Pirates, beginning next year. The Pirates must begin to show progress then, or else you have to think some changes could be made.
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