CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein has an update, or a lack of one, on Villanova freshman Omari Spellman’s NCAA eligibility for you on this Monday morning.
Villanova's Jay Wright told @CBSSports that there is no update on Omari Spellman's eligibility for the upcoming season. No timetable either.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) August 22, 2016
Still not great, Bob! No update still isn’t a total cause for concern, but there is some recent precedent for these types of issues resolving themselves late in teh summer.
Marquette’s Haanif Cheatham experienced an eligibility setback last season that caused him to miss the program’s European exhibition tour, and he found out he was eligible shortly after.
The more concerning part of that update is that apparently the NCAA can’t give the school an expected resolution timeline one way or the other. So for now, both Wright and Spellman are hanging in limbo with no expectation for when a verdict will drop. As the season inches closer and closer, that becomes a bigger problem.
That’s not entirely unexpected from the NCAA, which has made a meal of cases like this for years. But this isn’t some widespread investigation into institutional control where dozens of witnesses need to be interviewed. This is one kid and his high school transcripts. It shouldn’t be this hard.
Keep on doing you, NCAA.