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Not so fast Doubters

by Ryan Pravato on June 22nd, 2008

Is the University of Arizona the new Yale of the West?

Brandon Jennings sure might believe it.

The young basketball whiz from California, PG Brandon Jennings, might just decide to play overseas if he is found to be ineligible to play at Arizona next season due to insufficient SAT scores.

Brandon Jennings, who signed a letter of intent to play at Arizona, is looking at the unprecedented option of playing overseas next season to get ready for the 2009 NBA draft if he’s not eligible to play for the Wildcats next season.

source

Anyone with a pulse can get into the UofA. Why can’t Jennings? Who would want this moron leading their team?

Brandon might be all that and a bag of chips on the court, but no one would be unjust referring to him as not the sharpest tool in the shed off of it.

Maybe while he’s overseas polishing up his game some he’ll learn another language.

Don’t count on it.

Also don’t count on a high level Euro team, or any other high level foreign team for that matter, setting aside many minutes for a guy who will only stick around for one year. It just won’t happen. He’s kidding himself, those leagues are vastly more competitive and superior to the ones like, for example, the D-League.

If Jennings wants to play in some lower level leagues in Sweden or Poland, sure, he’ll get some good playing time, though the likelihood he’ll considerably improve is small.

Hold it right there.

Much of what is above is the opinion many folks have taken in terms of Jenning’s situation. They suddenly see the headline of this story on ESPN or FoxSports or any news media, read a couple of sentences, and then automatically jump to the conclusion that Jennings is an intellectual lightweight.

Then these people also say he wouldn’t get any interest from good overseas teams.

I’ve seen comments on the web like

“He’s dumb” and “He’s a moron, 3 SAT attempts and he’s still not in” and “What are they teaching at Oak Hill” and even “Will he be illiterate in two languages now?”

And even some bewildering statements about how much talent he actually has.

Many teams would love to sign this kid. An up and coming team looking to make a big push would gladly welcome an uber-athletic point guard to the mix. Even just for one year. He wasn’t named the 08 Player of the Year by numerous sources for nothing.

The guy would simply dominate the D-League. He’d be better off playing in a Euro League somewhere. It would give him a different perspective and hey, he would get paid more than he would in the D-League.

But he might be eligible to play for the Wildcats after all.

Back to the SAT dilemma

If you carefully read the article (and other articles from different sources about this), it specifically mentions Jennings did in fact pass his SAT in his second try, just that the NCAA wanted to make sure the jump from his first score to his second score was valid. So the NCAA basically told him to take the SAT over again and prove it.

Jennings said he will get his standardized test results back next Thursday. This is the third time he has taken a standardized test. Jennings said he was red-flagged for a jump in his score from the first to the second test. He said he didn’t know his scores.

But Jennings is slated to be in Tucson on Monday to start summer school. He has been admitted to the institution. It’s unclear what kind of affect having him on campus would have on Jennings’ decision — assuming he shows up.

source

So there.

A lot of this confusion and ignorance would be avoided if people would just have read the article in its entirety and, instead of expecting the worst, expect the best.

By Thursday we will know if Brandon will be playing in America at UofA, or in some foreign country.

He will be a top 5 pick in next year’s NBA draft either way.

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