Although he's not on the Ramblers despite some impressive recruiting efforts from Porter Moser, Keith Thomas has been ruled ineligible to play for St. John's this year due to an academic fraud investigation of his community college. 2 of his other teammates at Westchester Community College also had their scholarships pulled by Florida A&M. http://www.lohud.com/story/sports/2014/ ... /18124611/

Kind of a moot point considering I know a lot of people on this board (myself included) thought he could have really helped the frontcourt of our current team. Thomas led all JUCO players in rebounds last year. But even if we landed him, he probably wouldn't have played for us. It's a shame for him and St. John's.

If Thomas participated in the fraud, then I don't have any sympathy for him.

Reading the linked article, Thomas also had a couple brushes with the law. I'm glad he didn't land at Loyola with all his baggage.

Here's another view from the NY Post's St John's beat writer: http://nypost.com/2014/10/29/st-johns-t ... neligible/

Apparently, the Florida A&M kids had their transcripts tampered with, which is not as much on the player as it is on the people in charge who should know better

Agree with you. I hadn't heard about that stuff before.

Weird that the recruiting "battle" between us and St. John's was over Thomas and Marlon Jones, neither of whom is eligible to play.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I find it hard to believe that a falsified transcript was created without the knowledge or participation of the player, who is the beneficiary of the fraud, after all.

The article linked below is about the Florida A&M situation, and discloses that one of the players declared ineligible only completed ONE course at the junior college, but that his transcript said he met all course load requirements for a degree.

No way is that player an innocent victim of the college administration...

http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports. ... olarships/

And Then--and then we have have the Tarheel case where nobody knows anything !!!! Sheesh !!

Now , if only our kids would rise up and smack some people !!! Thanks heavens our kids appear to be straight shooters !!---We know LUC is --maybe to a fault--BUT that way is better

I could see where kids in this situation wouldn't be aware. Maybe the kid that took one class or whatever, but I could see schools doing this on their own.

Remember, they get to broadcast to everyone that they've placed X amount of players at Division I schools and that potentially helps exposure and recruiting for the school and program. It does backfire when you're finally caught though. I doubt most of these kids pay insanely close attention to their transcripts and just trust the process.

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The Roundhouse

In a related topic how bout congratulations to the Ramblers and Athletic Department for graduating 96% of their kids and ranking in the top 20 in Division I. I may be anxious to see more wins on the court but this makes me extremely proud to be a Rambler and I am guessing they are not taking ghost courses. It also made me reflect on some of the great teachers I had at LU.

Agree, Nate. This is really, really good to hear. These numbers are from '04-'07 enrolled students, and I can tell you that this was something Whitesell and his staff worked hard to help achieve.

If I am not mistaken the 96% applies to all of our student athletes of which mens basketball would be what??????? 10% but good for all of them. Those basketball teams under Coach Whitesell certainly had some excellent students