Big decision awaits Jennings
Why live in Tucson when you can live in Europe?
That is the question facing 18-year old basketball prospect Brandon Jennings.
Jennings, who signed a letter of intent with the University of Arizona, has faced NCAA academic hurdles. Those hurdles have made him question the decision to attend college at all and explore the option of playing in Europe for a year.
In order to play for the Wildcats Jennings was required to take a standardized test. He performed poorly on the first test and significantly improved his scores on the second test. That wasn’t enough for the NCAA though, Jennings was asked to take a third test due to the discrepancies in scores. He will receive the results of the test on Thursday.
According to ESPN Jennings has been admitted into the University of Arizona and started summer school classes already.
The question is if he is good enough to get into the University than why isn’t enough good enough to play basketball?
No one should kid themselves. Jennings isn’t going to Arizona for the quality of education and the time he will get to spend in the classroom. For that matter the University isn’t bringing him in to be a scholar or even an attentive student.
The relationship is take, take. Jennings wants to coast through his mandatory year and play basketball. Arizona wants to use him for the money that a deep run in the tournament will make them.
It seems the question is more “Why play for Arizona?” rather than “Why would you go to Europe to play?”.
In Europe Jennings is going to have the opportunity to play against players with professional skill sets, all be it not NBA skill sets. At Arizona he’ll get to play against players like (insert names of guys you will never hear of after 4-years of college).
How about the fact that Jennings will make a million to a million and a half Euros to play in one of the European leagues? With exchange rates he could almost buy the entire UofA program for that (my math is a little fuzzy it might not be quite enough to do that but significantly more than free room and board).
If you were a recruit would you really want to play for the University of Arizona? The team is in turmoil after Lute Olson’s year long absence due to (fill in excuse here) and the direction is unclear. Just ask Emanuel Negedu.
Just a bit of advice Brandon…just like the Steve Miller Band said “take the money and run”.
Get some money in your pocket, a year of experience under your belt and stick it to the NBA and the NCAA.
After spending 4-years in Tucson I’ll tell you this, if I had had the option to go to Europe it would have been a no brainer.
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Posted by Greg Esposito
Co-founder of AzSportsHub.com. Greg provides the sometimes serious, sometimes sarcastic and always interesting takes on Arizona sports (at least we hope). Whether it’s on In The Zona with Matt or in his column Greg reports, rants and raves about whatever is in the news for Arizona Sports.
http://www.azsportshub.com/author/espo
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