Between The Eers: Trust the NCAA and Play Battle?
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:10 A decision is in and Raekwon Battle, Noah Farrakhan and
00:15 all other transfers that are now at their third stop,
00:20 are eligible to play for the next 14 days.
00:24 That decision came yesterday in Wheeling as
00:30 Judge Bailey granted those,
00:34 granted the TRO to the temporary
00:40 restraining order to those folks against the NCAA.
00:47 But there's a lot of confusion with this.
00:49 What does it mean?
00:50 What's it not mean?
00:51 What can West Virginia do?
00:53 What are they not allowed to do?
00:55 And why are they still hesitant about playing their guy?
00:58 So quickly, I wanna kind of summarize what this means,
01:03 and then we can dive into the analysis.
01:07 So Amanda Krstovich from front office sports.
01:12 [MUSIC]
01:14 She reported yesterday that an NCAA spokesperson clarifies info on
01:19 new transfer rule developments.
01:21 The Ohio versus NCAA court ruling says that for the next 14 days,
01:26 athletes can be eligible to play even if they didn't get a waiver after a second or
01:31 third time transfer.
01:33 If that ruling is overturned after an athlete plays a couple games,
01:38 the athlete will not lose a year of future eligibility.
01:42 The games won't count as a year of eligibility either.
01:46 Another question to the NCAA is if a player plays in the next 14 days in
01:50 the NCAA waiver rules are upheld on the 27th, does that burn a year of eligibility?
01:57 The response from the NCAA was the restitution rule listed below was suspended
02:02 by the court, therefore eligibility would not be impacted.
02:06 However, Nicole Auerbach of the Athletic
02:12 also reported that there is a bylaw basically says that the NCAA
02:18 could vacate wins of games played with athletes who are ruled eligible
02:23 by a court if the ruling is eventually vacated or reversed.
02:28 So there's a lot of confusion going on with all of this stuff.
02:33 West Virginia put out a statement and
02:38 kind of made it a little bit more confusing to a certain extent because
02:43 it feels like even they don't have full clarity on what they should do.
02:51 Here's the statement from WVU Athletics.
02:54 We are aware of the ruling today handed down by Judge John P Bailey of
02:57 the United States District Court for Northern West Virginia.
03:02 We are consulting with WVU's General Counsel along with outside counsel prior
03:06 to making a determination on the eligibility status of any of our student
03:10 athletes, we will discuss this with our student athletes to make the best
03:14 decision possible taking into consideration the potential consequences of our decision.
03:19 That right there shows that there's still a fear that they can be punished or
03:26 penalized in some way, in some form or fashion.
03:29 And again, it is the NCAA, that they're gonna do some uncharacteristic things.
03:35 They're gonna do things that they go against what they say,
03:40 that's stuff that they've done for years.
03:42 So I understand the hesitancy.
03:44 Should West Virginia play Raekwon Battle, should they play Noah Farrakhan?
03:50 In my opinion, I wouldn't.
03:54 It sounds crazy, but I wouldn't, it's three games.
03:58 It's three games and I know you wanna get Raekwon Battle out there
04:06 because he's gonna help you immensely.
04:10 Noah Farrakhan from a depth perspective will help you immensely.
04:16 However, you play those games and for some reason the NCAA comes back and
04:21 says, you know what, we're gonna take those wins away.
04:26 Was it worth it?
04:32 It's UMass, Toledo and Radford, I believe,
04:37 are the three games within that 14 day window for West Virginia.
04:43 UMass, Radford, then Toledo.
04:46 So the permanent decision on this will come on December 27th.
04:53 Of course, the day of the Duke's Mayo Bowl for West Virginia.
05:00 And then we will know for sure whether or not these two time transfers or
05:06 three time transfers are eligible to play without the waiver.
05:10 They can play now, the NCAA has come out and
05:16 said that they are not going to penalize them.
05:20 The issue is, there still can be some,
05:25 the issue is they haven't really come out and
05:30 said it on their site, they haven't said it in a statement.
05:36 There has been text going back and forth between them and
05:40 reporters and you're getting all these reports that are coming out.
05:45 So I think until the NCAA comes out and says this in a statement or
05:50 has it up on their website, that will be something that
05:54 moves the needle a little bit in one direction for
05:58 some folks that feel comfortable enough to go ahead and move forward.
06:04 For West Virginia, here's the thing, and I get you wanna get Rayquan out there and
06:10 you wanna get Noah out there, especially for those two.
06:14 Those guys wanna play, they need to play, especially Rayquan.
06:18 He's been through a lot, he needs to be on the basketball floor, I understand it.
06:23 But you're sitting at four and five on the season,
06:27 you're about to enter Big 12 play here in a couple of weeks.
06:32 If for whatever reason the NCAA does come back and take those wins away,
06:39 it really puts you in a tough spot to make the NCAA tournament.
06:45 And who knows what they'll do?
06:47 They may say because you played those guys,
06:52 not only will you be vacated wins, but you'll just be eliminated from the NCAA
06:56 tournament.
06:56 They'll say whatever they wanna say, they'll do whatever they wanna do.
07:00 It can be taken to the court again,
07:02 there's just so many different things that can play out here.
07:06 And honestly, it's still really confusing even to me because I've seen so
07:11 many reports that say, West Virginia's in the clear.
07:16 They can play battle, they can play fair con.
07:18 But I'm seeing things that contradict that.
07:24 I don't understand why there's so much clarity for
07:29 those that are putting it out there that they're good to go.
07:32 I don't get that at all.
07:34 The NCAA, again, they can say whatever they want to reporters, but
07:39 until they put it out as an official statement, you can't trust them.
07:45 So I think that's why West Virginia said what they said in their statement.
07:49 So I wouldn't 100% guarantee that we will see Rayquan battle or
07:56 no affair con on Saturday against UMass.
07:59 I just don't have that certainty.
08:01 I do think there's a chance, but we'll see.
08:08 So there's that part of it.
08:13 The second part of it is, what can West Virginia do with these two back?
08:19 Or with these two now eligible to play, what can they do?
08:24 Can they get to the NCAA tournament and overcome that four and five star?
08:29 I still think it's a really, really uphill battle.
08:35 You've got a tough UMass team on Saturday.
08:43 You got to decide whether they play or not in these next three.
08:45 Radford's no slouch.
08:50 I mean, they're not great, but they're no slouch.
08:52 Toledo, kind of the same deal.
08:55 And then you have Ohio State before you roll right into Big 12 play, which,
09:01 by the way, thank you, Commissioner Yormark for
09:06 putting West Virginia as Houston's first ever home game in the Big 12.
09:12 Tough place to play, very tough team.
09:15 Who's undefeated right now, top five in the country.
09:17 It's a tough, tough schedule, and
09:20 it's only going to get more difficult as the year goes on.
09:24 There's not a whole lot of wins in the Big 12 conference schedule for
09:27 West Virginia.
09:27 I'm just going to be honest with you.
09:29 I don't think there was before this news came out, and
09:33 I certainly still don't think that.
09:35 And I certainly still think that.
09:38 This is a team, even with Kirk Carisa, even with Rayquan Battle,
09:42 even with potentially Noah Farrakhan, they're going to have some troubles.
09:46 Because of the front court, Akuka Cook, I mean, it's great that he's back.
09:52 It's a great story.
09:53 But right now he's playing in small increments.
09:58 If he can maybe get up to 20 plus minutes a game, now we're talking.
10:02 But even then, even with all these guys back,
10:06 it's still going to take probably about a two week window for
10:10 them to mesh and gel together and understand how each other plays.
10:14 That's what this non-conference portion of the schedule is for.
10:17 It's why you play the Monmouths and
10:19 the teams that they've played here in these first three or four weeks of the season.
10:25 Now they don't have that.
10:27 They're going to have to figure this out on the fly against good competition and
10:31 games that really do matter.
10:34 So I think there's a chance that they could still get to the NCAA tournament.
10:39 As tough as the schedule is, with that,
10:44 you're going to have many opportunities to pull off upsets.
10:48 And I think that this team certainly has the makeup and
10:53 certainly has the pieces to do it.
10:56 Again, it's just how quickly can they gel together?
11:02 That's my biggest question, because you're not going to have
11:06 these first batch of games where they can figure that out.
11:09 I think they're going to be clearly more competitive.
11:14 I think they're going to be much, much better than they have been.
11:17 I still think they're going to have issues on the defensive end of the floor,
11:19 because I don't think the additions of battle or
11:23 Farrakhan are going to help you tremendously on that end.
11:27 It'll help to some degree.
11:29 But these guys aren't defensive Vizontes.
11:33 I mean, this is more of an offensive driven addition or additions.
11:39 So we'll see, but I think it will help out.
11:42 The starting five in the lineup, I tweeted this out last night.
11:48 And I think there's multiple ways you can go with this.
11:51 And I don't think you'd be wrong necessarily either way.
11:58 But here's what I'm thinking, at least to start out.
12:01 Because a cook, again, you got to get him back up to full playing speed.
12:08 I think he's still a week, two, three weeks away.
12:12 It's hard to really tell because only he knows that's a scary situation that he
12:15 went through, you don't want to rush that.
12:17 So my starting five as of right now, I've got Kirk,
12:23 Risa, Seth Wilson, Ray Quambada, Quince Lozinski, Jesse Edwards.
12:26 That's if they decide to play, battle on Farrakhan or
12:31 if this is post December 27 and the decision holds and they're able to play.
12:36 Then on the bench, we have Irfani Nave, Kobe Johnson, Okoku Cook,
12:40 Josiah Harris, Farrakhan, Sumnick, Bram Breit and Ali Raghab.
12:44 And I know there's gonna be some debate about Seth Wilson being in the lineup
12:48 and instead of Kobe Johnson, but look, Kobe has played phenomenal.
12:56 For a guy that is being asked to play a position that he really wasn't recruited
13:01 to come to West Virginia to play.
13:02 However, I think having that coming off the bench is a much,
13:11 much better situation because now you have two
13:16 guys that can facilitate the ball, can run the offense.
13:19 You feel good about if Kerr has to come out of the game,
13:22 you've got somebody that can run the point.
13:24 And there's gonna be times where both of them are on the floor, 100%.
13:28 But I think you'd like to split those two up.
13:30 You also don't wanna put Seth Wilson in a position where he can't make shots.
13:38 Seth, I think, and this is just my personal opinion,
13:44 has kind of been held back because Kobe is playing out of position.
13:49 They don't really have a true point guard and
13:52 Seth thrives off of having that facilitator on the floor with him.
13:58 I think with Kerr Crease back,
14:00 you're gonna get much better production out of Seth Wilson.
14:05 And you're putting him in position who you could argue is your best shooter or
14:10 one of your best shooters to succeed.
14:14 If you bring him in and putting him with with Kobe Johnson or
14:19 some other variations of lineups, I don't know that it puts him in a position
14:24 to succeed or your team to succeed.
14:27 I think you need to have Seth Wilson paired up with Kerr Crease.
14:31 And maybe there's a situation where you play Kerr, Seth and
14:35 Kobe at the same time.
14:36 But again, there's many ways you can attack this.
14:40 And then I think as time goes on,
14:45 you'll see where a cook may get slid into that starting line, maybe.
14:51 Maybe, it's hard to 100% guarantee that because who do you take out?
14:57 I think at the beginning of the season, we all thought Quince Laziski was a bench
15:00 piece, he's proven he's worth keeping in that starting five.
15:04 You're leaving Ray Quambada in there, you're keeping Kerr Crease in there.
15:08 And if Seth Wilson's playing well, you're probably gonna leave him in there.
15:14 So it's hard to say that you would slide battle to the two and
15:19 slide Slazinski to the three and then put a cook in there at the four.
15:25 I think you roll with Crease or Wilson battle Slazinski-Edwards.
15:29 But in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter.
15:34 The starting five is just basically something everyone gets excited about.
15:41 Because it's just the first five on the floor, but it doesn't really matter
15:44 because throughout the game, the minutes distributed is what really matters.
15:49 I mean, there's gonna be guys, and you see it in the NBA,
15:53 there's guys that don't start, but have more minutes than they start.
15:58 So as long as the minutes are allocated to the right people,
16:01 then that's all you need to worry about.
16:05 So this is good news for West Virginia.
16:08 We think with Raekwon battle and
16:11 Noah Farrakhan getting technically cleared to play,
16:14 the NCAA has done so much over the years wrong.
16:21 And they will probably continue to do things wrong.
16:24 But this is a good step.
16:30 I'm a huge, huge advocate of allowing these kids to play.
16:37 I do think there has to be some sort of parameters around this thing.
16:40 Because if not, it's just a bunch of one year deals.
16:43 You can't have kids transferring four different times and
16:47 getting immediately eligible every single time.
16:50 That's ridiculous.
16:51 Or I don't know, does this mean if a kid hops in the portal today,
16:57 can he go play at another team tomorrow?
16:58 Like it's true free agency, like he technically releases himself from
17:03 the roster and goes and plays somewhere else maybe against you within the conference.
17:08 I mean, they've got to put some parameters around this.
17:11 I just don't know how you do it.
17:14 That's above my pay grade.
17:17 Last thing I want to say before I get off here.
17:19 During the hearing yesterday, the attorneys or the representatives for
17:25 the NCAA were asking some really interesting questions to Raekwon battle
17:31 when he was testifying.
17:33 And I get it, they're trying to do their job.
17:36 They're trying to make sure that everything was squeaky clean between Raekwon and
17:41 West Virginia and their connection and how that commitment all played about.
17:45 But this was really about his mental health ailment, right?
17:55 That's the whole reason why he landed at West Virginia.
18:02 Yet there was very, very little questions about that.
18:08 90% of it, in my opinion, felt like it was about the NIL situation.
18:16 And if he was being hindered in the NIL area because he was unable to be on the floor.
18:23 And it just felt like they were trying to get him to slip up and say something he shouldn't.
18:29 And I'm just not a huge fan of the questioning.
18:38 I get they need to figure out what they need to figure out and
18:41 they have every right to ask the questions that they did.
18:44 I just think it was a little unfair to not only Raekwon but to also the judge.
18:49 [LAUGH] That they asked the proper questions,
18:54 like they needed to ask more about the mental health side.
18:58 That's the whole reason he landed at West Virginia.
19:01 Because of Josh Eilert, because of that connection.
19:05 He lived on, I mean, you know the story, lived on a reservation.
19:08 They felt that instant connection.
19:09 When he left Montana State, the whole reason this all happened was because
19:16 his coach at Montana State, Danny Sprinkle, left.
19:20 He even said it during his questioning yesterday,
19:25 there was testifying yesterday that had Sprinkle stayed at Montana State,
19:29 he would have stayed there.
19:30 He would not have entered the portal at all.
19:34 He left, he goes to Utah State, I believe.
19:39 And then the question comes in, well, why didn't you just follow him there?
19:44 Well, the academic side of it, they didn't take all of his credits.
19:48 It would have set his graduation back.
19:50 Okay, so why West Virginia?
19:52 They had a great mental health setup, they could help him in that area.
19:57 He had the connection to Josh Eilert.
19:58 This is not rocket science.
20:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]
20:04 The NCAA just wants to do what they wanna do, and
20:07 they wanna be the ones to have full say in it.
20:10 And the moment this gets dragged into the court system, like I said last week with
20:14 the whole Tez Walker thing in North Carolina, the moment they threatened
20:18 a lawsuit, poof, he's eligible.
20:21 Isn't that insane?
20:22 Isn't that crazy how they just out of nowhere,
20:26 they just found this new information within 24 to 48 hours that just, yep,
20:31 that makes sense, he's eligible.
20:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]
20:36 The NCAA, when they go to court, does not have a good track record of winning.
20:42 So if you're worried about what will happen on the 27th,
20:46 from the fans perspective, I would say you're probably okay.
20:50 I think you feel pretty optimistic, you'd like your chances going into that here.
20:53 But if you're Josh Eilert, if you're Ren Baker, if you're Rayquan Battle,
20:59 if you're Noah Farrakhan,
21:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]
21:02 You're always going to be skeptic of the situation.
21:06 I think you have to be, because you have to look out for your players.
21:12 You have to look out for your team.
21:14 You don't wanna put them in a situation where if they play and
21:17 you lose wins, they say that they won't be punished for
21:24 them being played and that they will not burn a year of eligibility.
21:28 But again, you gotta have that in writing.
21:32 It can't just be hearsay.
21:33 So it's gonna be an interesting two weeks.
21:38 It'll be an interesting couple of days as we're gonna find out really soon
21:41 whether or not West Virginia will play Rayquan Battle,
21:45 Noah Farrakhan against UMass.
21:48 And maybe we'll get some clarity before the game starts on Saturday.
21:54 [BLANK_AUDIO]
21:57 I'm trying to pull up the schedule.
21:59 So West Virginia will have a Zoom meeting actually this morning here at 1130 on Zoom.
22:06 So we may get some answers here from Josh Eilert.
22:10 But I have a feeling he's gonna push this back.
22:14 And he probably also doesn't wanna tip his hand on what he's gonna do to UMass,
22:19 the Frank Martin.
22:20 If you can keep that to the vest for 48 hours,
22:23 be a little bit of a surprise element either way, really.
22:28 Plus I feel like it's too soon for them to really have enough information
22:33 to be able to make that decision at this point in time.
22:35 So we'll see West Virginia and UMass at the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic.
22:43 In Springfield at 630 on ESPNU on Saturday, we'll have that coverage for you.
22:50 And we'll also have the Mountaineers now post game show with Chris and myself.
22:54 So we'll have that for you.
22:58 We'll have some more Eilert talk probably tomorrow.
23:01 That's just my guess.
23:02 If he comes out and says that they're gonna play the kids, or
23:07 if he says they're not, if he has a decision in his head already,
23:11 I'll be back here tomorrow morning on Between the Ears talking about it.
23:14 If not, we'll go in a different direction and
23:17 find something else to wrap up the week with.
23:18 So thank you guys for watching another episode of Between the Ears.
23:22 Make sure you hit that subscribe button on YouTube at Mountaineers Now.
23:26 And hit that follow button on X at the same handle.
23:30 Thank you guys for watching.
23:31 We'll be back tomorrow.
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