Nojel Eastern Isn't Coming To Michigan After All
In the month-plus since former Purdue wing Nojel Eastern announced his intention to transfer to Michigan, rumors have persisted that he wouldn't wind up on the team. Today, the rumblings proved true, as Eastern announced that an issue with transferring credits prevented him from gaining admittance to the university:
Stay tune...... pic.twitter.com/n0GFSfFD7O
— Nojel Eastern (@NEblessed_20) June 17, 2020
Eastern would've been a defensive stopper for this team if he were granted a waiver for 2020-21. Now Michigan awaits a decision on an immediate waiver for their other non-grad transfer, former Wake Forest wing Chaundee Brown, another plus defender with finishing ability. It's worth noting, given Michigan never officially announced Eastern's transfer, that they haven't put out an official word on Brown's, either—Juwan Howard mentioned both players at a recent press availability but that evidently didn't mean Eastern had been cleared.
Meanwhile, the NCAA announced earlier this month that their deadline for early entrants to remove their name from the NBA Draft is August 3rd, so there could still be a lengthy wait before Isaiah Livers makes a decision about returning for his senior season.
Howard has one open scholarship to use while waiting on Livers's choice. While the transfer market is most picked down to the bone, there are a couple interesting names that have appeared on the board in recent weeks, like Florida guard Andrew Nembhard and St. John's wing LJ Figueroa. It'd be nice to balance out the roster with a traditional transfer; at the moment there are five open scholarships for next year even if you pencil in Brown getting denied a waiver and everyone else with eligibility coming back.
It seems more likely that Michigan will either try to land a 2021 prospect who reclassifies to 2020 or sit on the scholarship. The timing for everything this year is making roster construction difficult.
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He should try Eastern Michigan
I was thinking Western.
If this is true it’s a joke. Imagine not getting a player because credits wouldn’t transfer ? Unless he actually cares about getting a grad degree, it’s super dumb. Imagine a big time basketball school letting credits stop them from getting the player the otherwise want.
He's interested in getting an undergraduate degree and seemingly didn't like the timetable Michigan offered him.
Isn't that the type of stuff that UM fans usually complain about with other schools and we hang our hats on?
Eastern might be a perfectly fine student. Michigan has had issues with credits transferring (some classes that would transfer elsewhere don't count) and it results in non-graduate transfer admissions getting tougher by year.
According to policy IIRC Eastern would need to have enough credits to be able to graduate in one academic year of Michigan classes. Purdue is a good school but a class or two not transferring over could be the difference.
I’m just saying, other schools would figure out a way to fudge the numbers. He wasn’t a huge addition, so I’m not too concerned. But still.
Imagine not getting a player because credits wouldn’t transfer ?
I don't have to imagine it. It just happened.
Go Blue!!
Imagine for one minute, that this kid is a student 1st and an athlete second. Also imagine that Michigan is a university 1st and an athletic business second.
To be honest, I think this is best for both sides...he needs to go somewhere where he's going to get 25+ mpg and be a #2 or #3 option. Michigan wasn't that place.
I honestly never saw a need unless you absolutely had to go positionless late in games you're winning to switch all screens.
Hopefully he lands at a place like DePaul where he can really showcase his skillset.
Question for MattEM or anyone else in the know...
What Juwan poke around about Yor Anei that recently just left Okie State?
This is...unfortunate
This isn't an MBB issue; it's a UofM issue.
Michigan is notoriously stingy with transfer credits, well beyond unreasonable and into "fuck you that's why" territory. I'm not concerned if we miss out on HS recruits because they find our academic requirements too much, but regarding transfers, Michigan basically tries to make you take everything all over again. It has jack and piss to do with academic standards and all about seeing students as ATMs for tuition money. Can't collect revenue from transfer credits.
They wouldn't be collecting tuition anyway if Eastern got a scholarship, but if I'm understanding this right, Michigan's greed bit Howard in the ass.
Amen, amen. This is academic snobbery to the max and UM is guilty as charged. This wasn't transferring from a JuCo to the B-school, this was a fellow AAU institution. And I'm not just saying this as an athletics issue-- I have anecdotes from 20+ years since I was a student where credits wouldn't transfer just to take classes over again. A person who took three years of engineering level math (he finished DiffEq) at a smaller tech school in Colorado having to redo his entire math sequence (starting with Math 115 as a junior) at UM. A military academy transfer who couldn't get UM to recognize his military history classes as History credits. A gal who did two years at Hillsdale got ZERO of her economics courses to transfer (she was admitted to B-School) because the UM Economics Dept chair wrote in a letter "we do not feel that the economics curriculum at your previous school was diverse enough to warrant equivalency with our departments classes". She won those credits back in appeal to the B-School Dean's office.
There's holding yourself to a high academic standard, and then there's academic blood money. UM in my experience practices way too much of the latter.
It's worse than academic snobbery; it's greed dressed up as snobbery as if they think that somehow makes it look better.
Back when I was a student I took a few tests to place directly into 200-level and 300-level courses to get ahead. I passed, but the AP courses I took in HS didn't transfer. Basically, "These test results (that we administered) prove you are qualified to take the 200-level course, but we don't acknowledge credits for the courses you took to get there." Didn't impact my major, but for the minimum credit-hours I needed to graduate from LSA, I had to start from scratch. So, it was never about academics in the first place. It's just about the money.
This is not a new or recent issue with UM either. Wayyy back in the mid-70s a friend of mine who'd completed a degree at U of Toledo applied to UM's grad program in computer engineering, and UM refused to accept a bunch of his credits. He had to take some UM undergrad classes to make up the credits before he could be accepted in the grad program he wanted.
He eventually got his masters at UM and went out to work for a software firm based in Redmond WA. He retired a bunch of years ago as a literal millionaire.
I agree that for the most part it's nothing more than a tuition money grab by UM.
Admissions probably had difficulty finding UM course equivalents that were close enough and were acceptable for credit in the program he would have enrolled in. Grades would influence the decision too, I suspect. I am merely speculating, but it can be a problem unless there is flexibility on both sides.
That said, I would readily agree that university professors and administrators are as prone as anyone else to a superiority complex. Even sports fans?
Go Blue!
Livers is so traveling in this picture.....
Think if this situation involved OSU instead of UM, he'd still be denied admission?
Nope. He'd be in hell or highwater.
And someone from OSU recently posted that OSU and UM were academically closer than we think. Pfffft. I still remember Demar Dorsey, too. That shit never happens at OSU.
I just don't get how he wasn't admitted based on credits
I understand some higher level courses not transferring, but how does that affect general admittance?
Wouldn't that just mean he will have to take more classes? You can get into Michigan from WCC. I don't buy a kid from Purdue couldn't get into Michigan because of credits. It had to be grades OR he didn't want to be at school longer (which are perfectly fine reasons).
Yeah the fact that he's coming from Purdue is confounding. What credits exactly would M not take from Purdue?
What kind of garbage school is Purdue if your credits don't transfer to U-M?
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