The 6'9" Aussie had 14 points and 9 rebounds in their victory over Ball State.
He would have looked good in a Rambler uniform for the next 4 years

I think he was committed to the Ramblers early on, but something happened late in his recruitment that made him sign with Bradley

If anybody knows the story, I would love to hear it
I hope that it wasn't simply that Porter misjudged his talent and thought he could do better.

Swella,

I have no knowledge why Barker did not end up at Loyola, but I can't imagine lack of talent was the issue. After watching the first two games, I am sure the coaching staff would have appreciated having him on the roster.

I think we probably could have had him, but if you look at it, at the time we only had 5 guards available this year: Turk, White, Peterson, Doyle, and Richardson. We had 6 forwards: Montel, Ingram, Knuth, Rajala, Kirby, Adgei. That's a little bit unbalanced unless you want to argue that Ingram is more of a 3 than a 4.

But regardless, our 12 scholarship went to Custer, who has to sit out, so if you add Barker, you're playing with 5 guards and 7 forwards, which is awkward. The decision becomes do we want to go into this year with only 5 guards? We'd be stretched really thin if there was an injury.

Barker looks like he would be great to have, but I think the depth at guard -- we added Tyson Smith instead -- will benefit us also.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Barker had 17 points and 7 rebounds in a loss to SetonHall.

Apparently, LU's admissions department said he needed another class to be eligible for admission. Sometimes foreign classes do not quite fit as neatly in the check off list of requirements, and Bradley was not nearly as picky, unfortunately. That's the info I got, and it kind of fits in with previous stories I've heard about stringent and particular the admissions department can be. Very unfortunate for us-- it's not like 1973 anymore, when the rigor of of foreign curricula may have been dubious.

Hmmmmm !! I am pleased with LUC's entrance requirements. Schools with equally or even tougher standards--ND, STANFORD, VANDY, X, et al win "encumbered" with their standards , so shall we sooner than later. I am sure we knew upon entering the Valley, that we would have higher entrance requirements than the other schools, but it now appears that we are competing well, in any case--in all Sports .

We did not get this fellow, but we can win without him anyway.

Notre Dame's football coach admitted recently that most of the team wouln't have been admitted to the school if normal entrance standards were applied.

As for Barker, I remember now that Streak had also mentioned Admissions as the reason he didn't sign with the Ramblers.
This really steams me, and I'm going to try to look into it some more.

I think at most of the academically elite D1 schools (Stanford, NW, Duke, ND, Vandy), the majority of the student athletes would not be admitted through regular admissions. This is even the case at most Ivy schools--there were a number of football players from my high school who went on to play at Ivy institutions but definitely did not have the grades/scores to be admitted normally. They were certainly well above-average students but not Ivy level.

However, the difference is, these schools have higher standards than the rest both in the caliber of student-athletes they admit and the standards the student-athletes are held to when attending the school (e.g. no SEC style attendance-optional, joke classes). I'd like Loyola to fall in this category. Admit some athletes that may not have been admitted otherwise (but don't throw all standards out the window) but hold all athletes to the standards of a regular student.

Whoa !! Am I to understand that LUC holds their athletes to higher stds than does ND et al.?? Do we hold our Team members to higher stds than our regular everyday students ?? Our regular students are higher caliber than most . Wow ! If accurate , we really have a handicap here. Its a wonder how we get anybody much less NAT'L champ VB guys and a good and getting better Hoops team.

Please clear this up for me ---Thanks !!

I recall hearing that Gene Sullivan was allowed some flexibility regarding admissions and that it backfired when he couldn't keep some of his players eligible. If any of you Ramblermaniacs can shed some light on this, please do.

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Let's go Braden!