DeLeon does what he’s told but NCAA declares him ineligible

Through no fault of his own, Adris DeLeon’s college basketball career might be over.

Eastern Washington University’s senior point guard and leading returning scorer learned Wednesday that the NCAA has declared him academically ineligible after he deviated – on the advice of an Eastern official – from an academic recovery plan the school had submitted on his behalf a year ago.

According to Eagles coach Kirk Earlywine, the academic recovery plan was part of a successful appeal the school made last fall to clear up some junior college transcript concerns the NCAA had about DeLeon. The plan detailed the classes DeLeon was to take to graduate on time.

The NCAA accepted the plan, Earlywine said, but then last quarter, after changing his major, DeLeon followed the advice of a school official and dropped a class that was not going to count toward his new major.

“And now the NCAA is saying, since he did not take the exact classes that were listed in his academic recovery plan, he’s not eligible,” Earlywine said. “He has done nothing wrong. He has passed every class at Eastern with a C or better, he’s taken every class he was told to take and yet, he’s now being punished for something that was absolutely 100 percent not his fault.”

Earlywine expressed his disappointment with both the NCAA’s decision, which he called “horrendous,” and his university for “dropping the ball” by advising DeLeon to drop a class that was listed on his academic recovery program.

According to Earlywine, DeLeon still has a couple of ways to regain his eligibility. The first involves an appeal the university plans to make on his behalf to the NCAA Cabinet.

“If they agree to hear the appeal, they will hear it next Friday,” he said. “But there is no guarantee they will hear the appeal, and even if they do, I don’t know how soon after that we would get a decision.”

Earlywine said DeLeon could also regain his eligibility at the end of the quarter through additional work in the classroom.

“But by the end of the quarter, we’ll have already played eight games, including a (Big Sky) conference game,” Earlywine said. “And Adris won’t be playing in any of those and gaining the familiarity with his teammates that he needs to gain.

“While missing eight games certainly isn’t the end of the world, it certainly doesn’t help him in his last year of intercollegiate athletics, and it doesn’t help our team.”

DeLeon played in 27 games for Eastern last winter, starting 12, and averaged 12.5 points and 3.1 assists per game after transferring from College of Southern Idaho. He scored a career-high 42 points – the third-highest total in school history – in a 91-85 overtime win over Northern Colorado and finished the year as the Big Sky Conference’s 10th-leading scorer.

Earlywine and the Eagles leave this morning for Champaign, Ill., where they will open the season on Friday against the University of Illinois.