Between The Eers: Will WVU Win the Battle?
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:09 Good Monday morning everybody, Scott Calhoun here on Between the Years,
00:13 a new week here on the show.
00:14 Again, we're gonna do this every day, Monday through Friday,
00:18 throughout the off season.
00:19 And each and every day we'll come at you with some WB football,
00:23 basketball, recruiting news, anything in between.
00:27 Today we're actually gonna jump over to the basketball side of things.
00:30 We spent the last three or four shows really kind of hammering in on
00:33 the transfer portal, what West Virginia football is doing.
00:36 But today we're gonna talk Raekwon Battle.
00:39 As you know, this is not new news.
00:42 But on Friday, Raekwon Battle and his attorneys filed a federal lawsuit
00:47 against the NCAA over his eligibility or lack thereof.
00:53 And in my opinion, I think this is good news for West Virginia and for Battle.
00:59 Anytime the NCAA is being dragged into the courts,
01:06 that's somewhere they don't wanna be.
01:08 They know that at that point, it's just better off to let the kid or
01:14 the school or whatever the case may be to kind of have their way,
01:18 for lack of better terms.
01:22 North Carolina did this similar gesture back in the fall with Tess Walker,
01:28 the wide receiver transfer, didn't play at the start of the season.
01:34 Carolina was very vocal about it, very openly shared their frustrations and
01:41 threatened a lawsuit.
01:43 And boy, wouldn't you know, as soon as that lawsuit was threatened,
01:48 the NCAA just out of nowhere just found this brand new information
01:53 that they were like, okay, yeah,
01:58 we feel comfortable enough to allow Tess Walker to play now.
02:01 Now, what could happen in that short time frame from the time that
02:07 they threatened the lawsuit to the time that they let Tess play?
02:12 I don't know, I don't know how much more information you can find out.
02:16 West Virginia has been just about as strong in their pursuit of this,
02:23 as has Ray Quambada, he has said multiple times he's not going out without a fight.
02:28 And back in the fall, there was a lot of people around college sports that were
02:34 really kind of curious to see what would happen with Tess Walker in Carolina.
02:37 Because that was really kind of a unique situation,
02:41 you don't really see that type of open frustration from a school,
02:48 a coach, in regards to a player being ineligible.
02:51 Didn't really know what would happen, but we kind of did.
02:56 They were gonna give him the eligibility, again,
02:58 because they don't wanna go through the court process.
03:01 Once they go there, they know they're defeated.
03:03 They can't stand to win an argument or a case in those court systems.
03:09 When it's in their court, they can control everything.
03:13 That's what they like, that's where they want this thing to stay.
03:16 But the moment it gets out of their hands and it goes to the legal system,
03:22 the one that everyone operates under, they're not gonna win those battles.
03:27 They're undefeated in their own court, not so much in the other.
03:31 So I think this is good news for West Virginia.
03:36 I don't wanna sit here and say it's gonna be a definite that he plays this season
03:41 for the Mountaineers.
03:43 I don't wanna say anything of that certainty, but
03:48 I think the optimism should be there for Mountaineer fans.
03:51 I really do, because again, the NCAA has no chance.
03:55 As long as this process doesn't drag on, I think at some point,
04:01 we're gonna get the result back that yes, battles should be deemed eligible.
04:06 And with all of the overwhelming mountains of evidence that Raekwon
04:11 has in its favor, how could any court or judge or
04:19 any decision maker go against Raekwon battle in this situation?
04:26 They can't, that's why the NCAA was fearful of this happening.
04:32 They're fearful of any of these situations going to the court.
04:38 They can't win them.
04:39 They want to have total and
04:43 complete control of everything under their umbrella.
04:48 But the reality of it is they can't.
04:53 This is absurd that the NCAA will grant guys sixth and
04:59 seventh and maybe even eighth years of eligibility.
05:07 But for a kid that lost his coach at Montana State,
05:11 Ghost in the portal.
05:19 He can't follow his coach because he's already transferred once.
05:24 So if you transfer once, you use your one time transfer,
05:26 you have to sit out the second time unless you follow the coach
05:31 that went to a new job.
05:33 He could not transfer to that school that his coach went to.
05:39 Due to the timeline for his graduation.
05:45 They didn't accept all the credits I believe and
05:48 that would have set his graduation date back.
05:50 So to be able to graduate on time, to be able to play basketball and
05:55 hopefully get into the next level of his career, he had to go somewhere else.
06:00 He finds West Virginia, talks about Josh Eilert,
06:07 who at the time was not the head coach.
06:09 He committed to playing for Bob Huggins.
06:12 We all know what happened there.
06:14 This guy has had three head coaches in the span of five or six months.
06:19 For a kid that was already dealing with mental health issues,
06:25 he's been dealt a tough card.
06:28 Here at WVU with the hugging situation happening and
06:36 that doesn't help his mental situation at all having to go from
06:44 everything that he's dealt with coming to West Virginia,
06:47 finding feeling like he's got some stability.
06:50 He's got a new coach, a new support system and
06:52 then all that just to be yanked out from underneath him.
06:55 But he does have Josh Eilert, someone that has grown up on a reservation.
07:03 Someone that he can relate to, someone that he can really go to for anything.
07:09 And Josh has been in his corner since day one.
07:13 What else does the NCAA need?
07:17 Why is there a decision that,
07:24 why can't the NCAA grant this kid eligibility?
07:32 You have so many situations where coaches and
07:40 players are being either illegally recruited or
07:46 are illegally recruiting players.
07:48 And those parties just get a slap on the wrist.
07:56 Couple games suspension and they're back at it.
08:02 That brings me to a whole other situation.
08:08 I don't wanna go too far off here, but again, how is Kirk Risa getting
08:13 suspended nine games for something that took place at Arizona?
08:18 But Arizona doesn't have any punishment.
08:22 What does the NCAA have against West Virginia?
08:29 He received impermissible benefits while at Arizona,
08:36 but West Virginia is being punished for
08:41 something he did at another school or was punished, suspensions every.
08:46 So I don't wanna go too far into that again, but
08:50 it just seems like there's something that the NCAA has against West Virginia right
08:55 now.
08:56 Typically, I wouldn't say stuff like that, that sounds like fan talk,
09:00 that just sounds like just the old everyone's against us mentality.
09:05 But it truly does feel like that.
09:07 I don't understand, I don't know what the NCAA has in its mind in regards to
09:14 this situation, I really don't because again, you have all the evidence.
09:20 You have Raekwon coming out posting that video with his message to NCAA,
09:25 perfectly explaining his entire story, not only to them, but everybody out there.
09:30 So they can understand, look, this is a true and legit situation.
09:34 But we're gonna penalize the kid for
09:40 finding a stable and secure home, really?
09:45 Come on, you got, I mean, NCAA,
09:52 I know you set the bar very, very, very low.
09:56 But man, I really don't know what to say about this.
10:03 I'm really at a loss for words.
10:05 I don't know if there was any hope for
10:10 the NCAA to ever figure things out.
10:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]
10:19 That's all gone away.
10:20 I don't understand where this is going.
10:26 I don't understand why a decision has not been reversed.
10:32 You've had multiple chances to make the right decision.
10:36 And they have.
10:39 It's not like granting Raekwon battle his eligibility is gonna make
10:44 West Virginia National Championship contender, it's gonna be some unfair advantage.
10:49 Okay, this is a team now that has had a seven man rotation,
10:53 really a six man rotation for the better part of eight or nine games.
10:57 They just got a cook cook back.
10:59 So, and he's still extremely limited.
11:04 I'm not saying that they need to make that decision based off of West Virginia's
11:07 situation and its roster.
11:09 But I mean, come on.
11:13 The thing that the NCAA has struggled with from the very beginning
11:19 has been consistency.
11:22 You can't grant a kid a waiver here and not grant him one there.
11:27 You can't deny this kid a waiver and then have a different decision elsewhere.
11:32 They constantly move the goalposts.
11:38 For West Virginia to get Raekwon battle eligible, they've had to bend over
11:45 backwards, do everything in between here in the sun.
11:49 And yet they're, and they did it all in a timely manner.
11:54 Everything the NCAA requested from West Virginia was back to the NCAA
11:59 before the NCAA even had a chance to ask its next question.
12:02 West Virginia was a step or two ahead in this entire process.
12:07 But the NCAA just moseys around, plays this thing out, lets it go for
12:14 two or three weeks before making a decision.
12:17 Then comes the appeal right after the denial, moseying around again.
12:24 You talk about wanting the best for student athletes and their mental health.
12:30 Yet this is what's happening.
12:34 This is what's playing out.
12:35 Fairly contradicting, don't you think?
12:40 So I don't really have a whole lot more to say about this because I think it's
12:48 just total BS in my opinion.
12:50 And I think everyone watching this could probably share that same feeling.
12:54 But like I said, back to what I stated at the beginning of this video,
13:01 anytime the NCAA gets dragged or
13:05 has been threatened to be dragged into the court system,
13:09 they usually wave the white flag, usually.
13:13 So I think West Virginia's got a chance here
13:17 to get Raekwon Battle on the court this season.
13:21 We'll find out, hopefully this thing doesn't take too long.
13:24 Battle's back out there playing for the Mountaineers and
13:27 hoping to get them into the win column a little bit more often.
13:32 Maybe get themselves into the NCAA tournament.
13:34 A lot of work to do still.
13:35 West Virginia not playing again until Saturday.
13:38 They take on UMass in the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic up there in Springfield,
13:43 Massachusetts.
13:44 So we'll have that coverage for you.
13:47 And we'll be back tomorrow morning for a new episode of Between Years.
13:50 Thank you guys for watching.
13:51 Hit that subscribe button on YouTube at Mountaineers Now and
13:55 follow us on X at the same handle.
13:57 Take care, everybody.
13:58 [MUSIC]