Westbrook waiver denied

[Plebe]

Haven't read through all of this...but basically we'll find out by Wednesday if the appeal is approved or not?

Doubtful. Geno apparently misspoke when he said the appeal would be decided in a day. School clarified later that the decision might take about a week.

 

[Biff]

Haven't read through all of this...but basically we'll find out by Wednesday if the appeal is approved or not?

Probably not. Initially Geno indicated a one day response but that has since been corrected that the response to the appeal could take a week.

 

[BroadwayVa]

Haven't read through all of this...but basically we'll find out by Wednesday if the appeal is approved or not?

No I don't think so I believe it could be weeks---apparently Geno mispoke about Wednesday. I hope it is Wednesday.

 

[BroadwayVa]

No. You quoted @CamrnCrz1974, He was quoting me, I was referring to Leticia Romero:

So all you Facebook posters---get to work. Grant EVINA's WAIvER NOW. Zukerberg believes in Free Speech use it.

 

[BroadwayVa]

My favorite part of Favor's "argument" is that because Westbrook celebrated her transfer with a photo of her and her family happily attired in UConn apparel her old school shouldn't support her waiver request.

@meyers7 and @Tonyc tried to convince me UTenn with or without PAT is a Petty grudge holding unthinking unreasonable bunch of -----fill in the blani.

 

[BroadwayVa]

All I know is that if Westbrook's waiver appeal ends up being denied, Tennessee better lace em tight when they play UConn because Auriemma is going to want to drop 100 on them!

Why would he stop at 100? You won't believe the crowd of Uconn supporters . Remember these Yankee's are crude rude un-nice people---and we we'll have an opportunity to show it.

 

[tennfanatic00]

Respectfully, I’d like to add another orange perspective here.

I watched evina play for two years under holly here. Her first season started great.There was tremendous excitement around the program, and we thought we’d turned a corner. There were myriad chemistry issues that led to the lack of success that season and the following. I think evina played while not 100 percent quite often. This led to what some called lackluster efforts (especially on defense). Holly was not able to get the best out of evina (or anyone for that matter).
I saw a tremendous amount of support for evina while she was here both on campus and off. We are a passionate fan base that loves our players. There are bad fans in every group that harp on the negative. I remember mama Westbrook posting on the summitt often. When she would stick up for her daughter, 95 percent of posters agreed with her. The remaining five percent had valid points as well. Evina did not live up to her potential as a lady vol. It may have been the staff, it may have been injuries l, it may have been disengagement. I think it was a combination of all the above.
I was upset when evina spoke publicly about her frustration with the situation at Tennessee. Emotions run high in sports but you have to leave that between you and the team. Basic media 101. She entered the portal but stuck around campus to “weigh her options”. She saw kellie hired and met with her multiple times. Kellie finally pressed her into a decision and evina decided to go. We as fans were understandably disappointed but most wished her well. Then she got petty on social media and made it a lot worse for herself. It’s clear she felt slighted or hurt by UT in some way, and that came out in her “sorry not sorry” post. I try to take actions of teenage girls with a grain of salt, but given the history between our two programs, it’s proven to be a difficult thing to do here.
All that to say, I see no reason Tennessee has to advocate for evina to be approved to play right away. If evina’s point is that this environment was so toxic she couldn’t stay, admitting that publicly by supporting her request would be recruiting suicide. And this is because she made the decision to go after kellie was hired. She could have withdrawn from the portal, but she deemed kellie’s program to not suit her needs. That’s okay, that’s what the portal is for, but you don’t get to say the environment was toxic when that toxicity was removed before you made your decision to leave. I think this is why the NCAA ruled against immediate eligibility. Just because you put your name in the portal, doesn’t mean you’ve decided to transfer. When the decision was made formally, all the reasons she publicly stated for a transfer had been resolved.

 

[MilfordHusky]

All I know is that if Westbrook's waiver appeal ends up being denied, Tennessee better lace em tight when they play UConn because Auriemma is going to want to drop 100 on them!

And it will be 2 games and done.

 

[VA Huskie]

Respectfully, I’d like to add another orange perspective here.

I watched evina play for two years under holly here. Her first season started great.There was tremendous excitement around the program, and we thought we’d turned a corner. There were myriad chemistry issues that led to the lack of success that season and the following. I think evina played while not 100 percent quite often. This led to what some called lackluster efforts (especially on defense). Holly was not able to get the best out of evina (or anyone for that matter).
I saw a tremendous amount of support for evina while she was here both on campus and off. We are a passionate fan base that loves our players. There are bad fans in every group that harp on the negative. I remember mama Westbrook posting on the summitt often. When she would stick up for her daughter, 95 percent of posters agreed with her. The remaining five percent had valid points as well. Evina did not live up to her potential as a lady vol. It may have been the staff, it may have been injuries l, it may have been disengagement. I think it was a combination of all the above.
I was upset when evina spoke publicly about her frustration with the situation at Tennessee. Emotions run high in sports but you have to leave that between you and the team. Basic media 101. She entered the portal but stuck around campus to “weigh her options”. She saw kellie hired and met with her multiple times. Kellie finally pressed her into a decision and evina decided to go. We as fans were understandably disappointed but most wished her well. Then she got petty on social media and made it a lot worse for herself. It’s clear she felt slighted or hurt by UT in some way, and that came out in her “sorry not sorry” post. I try to take actions of teenage girls with a grain of salt, but given the history between our two programs, it’s proven to be a difficult thing to do here.
All that to say, I see no reason Tennessee has to advocate for evina to be approved to play right away. If evina’s point is that this environment was so toxic she couldn’t stay, admitting that publicly by supporting her request would be recruiting suicide. And this is because she made the decision to go after kellie was hired. She could have withdrawn from the portal, but she deemed kellie’s program to not suit her needs. That’s okay, that’s what the portal is for, but you don’t get to say the environment was toxic when that toxicity was removed before you made your decision to leave. I think this is why the NCAA ruled against immediate eligibility. Just because you put your name in the portal, doesn’t mean you’ve decided to transfer. When the decision was made formally, all the reasons she publicly stated for a transfer had been resolved.

Well said, and I get your point. I’m not sure we know that the toxic environment you mention was driven by the head coach. Sure the coach has overall responsibility for the program, but replacing the coach doesn’t necessarily erase the issues the student-athlete is facing. Also, I don’t expect Tennessee to “advocate” for Westbrook, just to endorse that the transfer is in her best interests.

 

[Alydar]

Respectfully, I’d like to add another orange perspective here.

I watched evina play for two years under holly here. Her first season started great.There was tremendous excitement around the program, and we thought we’d turned a corner. There were myriad chemistry issues that led to the lack of success that season and the following. I think evina played while not 100 percent quite often. This led to what some called lackluster efforts (especially on defense). Holly was not able to get the best out of evina (or anyone for that matter).
I saw a tremendous amount of support for evina while she was here both on campus and off. We are a passionate fan base that loves our players. There are bad fans in every group that harp on the negative. I remember mama Westbrook posting on the summitt often. When she would stick up for her daughter, 95 percent of posters agreed with her. The remaining five percent had valid points as well. Evina did not live up to her potential as a lady vol. It may have been the staff, it may have been injuries l, it may have been disengagement. I think it was a combination of all the above.
I was upset when evina spoke publicly about her frustration with the situation at Tennessee. Emotions run high in sports but you have to leave that between you and the team. Basic media 101. She entered the portal but stuck around campus to “weigh her options”. She saw kellie hired and met with her multiple times. Kellie finally pressed her into a decision and evina decided to go. We as fans were understandably disappointed but most wished her well. Then she got petty on social media and made it a lot worse for herself. It’s clear she felt slighted or hurt by UT in some way, and that came out in her “sorry not sorry” post. I try to take actions of teenage girls with a grain of salt, but given the history between our two programs, it’s proven to be a difficult thing to do here.
All that to say, I see no reason Tennessee has to advocate for evina to be approved to play right away. If evina’s point is that this environment was so toxic she couldn’t stay, admitting that publicly by supporting her request would be recruiting suicide. And this is because she made the decision to go after kellie was hired. She could have withdrawn from the portal, but she deemed kellie’s program to not suit her needs. That’s okay, that’s what the portal is for, but you don’t get to say the environment was toxic when that toxicity was removed before you made your decision to leave. I think this is why the NCAA ruled against immediate eligibility. Just because you put your name in the portal, doesn’t mean you’ve decided to transfer. When the decision was made formally, all the reasons she publicly stated for a transfer had been resolved.

"all the reasons she publicly stated for a transfer had been resolved"

What about unstated reasons? And how about the issue of her knee? We don't know what happened. In fact until this transfer request Vol fans had no idea there were "chemistry" issues with the team, at least not publicly. I'd be curious to know what those were.

I wonder what you think of Sue Favor saying she needed to be denied simply for saying she was happy at UConn? Is that comment in the best interests of the player or the best interests of Tenn?

 

[tennfanatic00]

Well said, and I get your point. I’m not sure we know that the toxic environment you mention was driven by the head coach. Sure the coach has overall responsibility for the program, but replacing the coach doesn’t necessarily erase the issues the student-athlete is facing. Also, I don’t expect Tennessee to “advocate” for Westbrook, just to endorse that the transfer is in her best interests.

The danger here is that a lot of the vitriol aimed at evina was on social media. If the NCAA makes a decision to label an environment “hostile” based on social media, that opens Pandora’s box. All it will take to get a waiver granted is to flood an athlete’s page with disparaging comments posed from a particular fanbase. Toxicity is relative. Every student athlete goes though trials and tribulations. UT is doing the right thing for themselves to stay neutral. Even endorsing the transfer as being in her best interest would admit that the environment has issues. Every he’d coach in America would pounce on that in recruiting.

 

[tennfanatic00]

"all the reasons she publicly stated for a transfer had been resolved"

What about unstated reasons? And how about the issue of her knee? We don't know what happened. In fact until this transfer request Vol fans had no idea there were "chemistry" issues with the team, at least not publicly. I'd be curious to know what those were.

I wonder what you think of Sue Favor saying she needed to be denied simply for saying she was happy at UConn? Is that comment in the best interests of the player or the best interests of Tenn?

I don’t agree with Sue Favor’s stance. I’m happy evina is happy at UConn but I wish she’d gone about the transfer in a more mature way.
The fanbase spoke publicly the last couple seasons about issues within the tram. We thought it was resolved when diamond and cooper left. Then when Hayes left. But the issues stayed. I believe because holly did not know how to run the program. As far as evina’s knee goes, you’re right. No one knows. What i am very confident in saying is that our program does not put player safety in jeopardy. I have never seen a situation at UT in which a player was asked to play against the advice of medical personnel. If the training staff clears, the staff plays the player. I do believe evina thinks playing on the knee led to her injuring it more. That may be true, but that’s not out of the ordinary for any college athlete.

 

[VA Huskie]

The danger here is that a lot of the vitriol aimed at evina was on social media. If the NCAA makes a decision to label an environment “hostile” based on social media, that opens Pandora’s box. All it will take to get a waiver granted is to flood an athlete’s page with disparaging comments posed from a particular fanbase. Toxicity is relative. Every student athlete goes though trials and tribulations. UT is doing the right thing for themselves to stay neutral. Even endorsing the transfer as being in her best interest would admit that the environment has issues. Every he’d coach in America would pounce on that in recruiting.

Do you not think there were environmental issues? I certainly don’t know, but I can easily read that into some of the stuff that was made public. I always assumed it was part of the reason that Holly was let go.

 

[VA Huskie]

Do you not think there were environmental issues? I certainly don’t know, but I can easily read that into some of the stuff that was made public. I always assumed it was part of the reason that Holly was let go.

My point being that if there were environmental issues and they replaced the coach, then acknowledging them wouldn’t be an issue - they solved the problem.

 

[JonathanXIV]

Even endorsing the transfer as being in her best interest would admit that the environment has issues. Every he’d coach in America would pounce on that in recruiting.

I appreciate your thoughtful and cogent posts. But I disagree with your conclusion above. Geno always endorses a player’s transfer and has done just fine in recruiting. The dramatically different responses by the UT AD to the transfers to the UT Men’s BB team and Westbrook is, at best, evidence of a double standard and, at worse, cynical and hypocritical.

 

[Plebe]

Respectfully, I’d like to add another orange perspective here.

I watched evina play for two years under holly here. Her first season started great.There was tremendous excitement around the program, and we thought we’d turned a corner. There were myriad chemistry issues that led to the lack of success that season and the following. I think evina played while not 100 percent quite often. This led to what some called lackluster efforts (especially on defense). Holly was not able to get the best out of evina (or anyone for that matter).
I saw a tremendous amount of support for evina while she was here both on campus and off. We are a passionate fan base that loves our players. There are bad fans in every group that harp on the negative. I remember mama Westbrook posting on the summitt often. When she would stick up for her daughter, 95 percent of posters agreed with her. The remaining five percent had valid points as well. Evina did not live up to her potential as a lady vol. It may have been the staff, it may have been injuries l, it may have been disengagement. I think it was a combination of all the above.
I was upset when evina spoke publicly about her frustration with the situation at Tennessee. Emotions run high in sports but you have to leave that between you and the team. Basic media 101. She entered the portal but stuck around campus to “weigh her options”. She saw kellie hired and met with her multiple times. Kellie finally pressed her into a decision and evina decided to go. We as fans were understandably disappointed but most wished her well. Then she got petty on social media and made it a lot worse for herself. It’s clear she felt slighted or hurt by UT in some way, and that came out in her “sorry not sorry” post. I try to take actions of teenage girls with a grain of salt, but given the history between our two programs, it’s proven to be a difficult thing to do here.
All that to say, I see no reason Tennessee has to advocate for evina to be approved to play right away. If evina’s point is that this environment was so toxic she couldn’t stay, admitting that publicly by supporting her request would be recruiting suicide. And this is because she made the decision to go after kellie was hired. She could have withdrawn from the portal, but she deemed kellie’s program to not suit her needs. That’s okay, that’s what the portal is for, but you don’t get to say the environment was toxic when that toxicity was removed before you made your decision to leave. I think this is why the NCAA ruled against immediate eligibility. Just because you put your name in the portal, doesn’t mean you’ve decided to transfer. When the decision was made formally, all the reasons she publicly stated for a transfer had been resolved.

While the respectful tone is appreciated, this response is rife with unsafe assumptions and critical misperceptions. I'll limit my comments to a few salient points.

1. The whole bit about "recruiting suicide" is just groundless fear-mongering. When Geno fully supported Mississippi State's waiver effort for Espinoza-Hunter, did he fear it would be seen as an acknowledgement of shortcomings in his own program? Of course not. It was about the student-athlete's well-being and nothing more. And this was a player who had transferred to a program that had just beaten UConn in the Final Four.
   
   
2. No admission of "toxicity" or anything of the sort is required. Just a stance that an ability to play immediately would be in Evina's best interest. Again, it is — or should be — about the player, not the program(s).
   
   
3. All of us are operating with very incomplete data. Many people (in both fan bases) have assumed that Evina's transfer is somehow due to boorish fan behavior toward her. I personally don't believe this was the decisive factor. Exactly why did she transfer? Those reasons are, by necessity, private and not for public consumption.
   
   
4. You "see no reason Tennessee has to advocate for Evina." You're technically right, they don't "have to." But sometimes doing the right thing entails going above and beyond the minimum requirement.

 

[Alydar]

I don’t agree with Sue Favor’s stance. I’m happy evina is happy at UConn but I wish she’d gone about the transfer in a more mature way.
The fanbase spoke publicly the last couple seasons about issues within the tram. We thought it was resolved when diamond and cooper left. Then when Hayes left. But the issues stayed. I believe because holly did not know how to run the program. As far as evina’s knee goes, you’re right. No one knows. What i am very confident in saying is that our program does not put player safety in jeopardy. I have never seen a situation at UT in which a player was asked to play against the advice of medical personnel. If the training staff clears, the staff plays the player. I do believe evina thinks playing on the knee led to her injuring it more. That may be true, but that’s not out of the ordinary for any college athlete.

I don't want to prolong this but if her knee got worse from playing then the Vol medical staff did not serve her well by clearing her to play. And that medical staff didn't get fired with Holly so the only way to solve that was for her to leave.
But I'm just speculating and I probably trust Geno more than you.

 

[the Q]

The danger here is that a lot of the vitriol aimed at evina was on social media. If the NCAA makes a decision to label an environment “hostile” based on social media, that opens Pandora’s box. All it will take to get a waiver granted is to flood an athlete’s page with disparaging comments posed from a particular fanbase. Toxicity is relative. Every student athlete goes though trials and tribulations. UT is doing the right thing for themselves to stay neutral. Even endorsing the transfer as being in her best interest would admit that the environment has issues. Every he’d coach in America would pounce on that in recruiting.

they let a Georgia qb transfer and be immediately eligible because a single person/fan said a mean thing about them.

 

[tennfanatic00]

While the respectful tone is appreciated, this response is rife with unsafe assumptions and critical misperceptions. I'll limit my comments to a few salient points.

1. The whole bit about "recruiting suicide" is just groundless fear-mongering. When Geno fully supported Mississippi State's waiver effort for Espinoza-Hunter, did he fear it would be seen as an acknowledgement of shortcomings in his own program? Of course not. It was about the student-athlete's well-being and nothing more. And this was a player who had transferred to a program that had just beaten UConn in the Final Four.
   
   
2. No admission of "toxicity" or anything of the sort is required. Just a stance that an ability to play immediately would be in Evina's best interest. Again, it is — or should be — about the player, not the program(s).
   
   
3. All of us are operating with very incomplete data. Many people (in both fan bases) have assumed that Evina's transfer is somehow due to boorish fan behavior toward her. I personally don't believe this was the decisive factor. Exactly why did she transfer? Those reasons are, by necessity, private and not for public consumption.
   
   
4. You "see no reason Tennessee has to advocate for Evina." You're technically right, they don't "have to." But sometimes doing the right thing entails going above and beyond the minimum requirement.

Couple of response notes...

1. The transfer of hunter is a very different scenario. I admire Geno for supporting her transfer. His quote led the NCAA to believe that he basically kicked her off the team. He “didn’t want her here”. This was not the case with evina. At the time, I thought the quote to be off putting, but it helped solidify hunters ability to be approved right away. It was being cruel to be kind.
2.This comes to one point for me. Evina decided to leave after thenew staff was in place. This leads me to believe the NCAA did not deem the environment to be toxic to Evina. The administration was attempting to make the right decisions for the student athletes to be successful, but some athletes decide to leave. Again, that’s fine, but when you leave, you sit out a season unless there are unique circumstances that led to your decision. Tennessee did not fight or limit her transfer request. That would have been vindictive and spiteful. They’re operating under what they believe to be the best interest of their program.
3. Geno says Tennessee wasn’t as helpful as they could have been. He doesn’t get into what information we could have given that we didn’t. My assumption here is that we could have verified some of the claims in the report and we chose not to. That decision could be attributed to one of two things. Either the claims are false or admitting to the claims would show just how bad the environment is in the program. And since she left after the staff turned over, the perception would be that the environment is still bad. That’s where the recruiting game could be hurt.
Honestly, I believe evina when she says she was unhappy at Tennessee. I’m glad she’s somewhere where she feels better. I wish her well as i know she’ll get the exposure she wants at uconn to be a high draft pick. She’s a talented kid and she’ll grow a lot from this.

 

[Plebe]

Couple of response notes...

1. The transfer of hunter is a very different scenario. I admire Geno for supporting her transfer. His quote led the NCAA to believe that he basically kicked her off the team. He “didn’t want her here”. This was not the case with evina. At the time, I thought the quote to be off putting, but it helped solidify hunters ability to be approved right away. It was being cruel to be kind.
2.This comes to one point for me. Evina decided to leave after thenew staff was in place. This leads me to believe the NCAA did not deem the environment to be toxic to Evina. The administration was attempting to make the right decisions for the student athletes to be successful, but some athletes decide to leave. Again, that’s fine, but when you leave, you sit out a season unless there are unique circumstances that led to your decision. Tennessee did not fight or limit her transfer request. That would have been vindictive and spiteful. They’re operating under what they believe to be the best interest of their program.
3. Geno says Tennessee wasn’t as helpful as they could have been. He doesn’t get into what information we could have given that we didn’t. My assumption here is that we could have verified some of the claims in the report and we chose not to. That decision could be attributed to one of two things. Either the claims are false or admitting to the claims would show just how bad the environment is in the program. And since she left after the staff turned over, the perception would be that the environment is still bad. That’s where the recruiting game could be hurt.
Honestly, I believe evina when she says she was unhappy at Tennessee. I’m glad she’s somewhere where she feels better. I wish her well as i know she’ll get the exposure she wants at uconn to be a high draft pick. She’s a talented kid and she’ll grow a lot from this.

Now we've ventured into straw-man territory, in addition to indulging in unsafe assumptions. There's absolutely no evidence that Geno's comments which you reference played any part in the NCAA's decision. Again, amid a severe shortage of data, outsiders seize on what little is known to make leaps in logic and construct a narrative that seems plausible on the face of it and/or caters to their preconceived notions.

Same thing with the "toxic environment" part. We don't even know that this per se was part of the rationale presented in the application. It's also entirely possible that the biggest problems Evina experienced came from sources other than the coaching staff who were replaced.

You've doubled down on conflating support for a waiver request with an admission of weakness in the program. I guess that's the narrative that for whatever reason you feel wedded to.

 

[tennfanatic00]

Now we've ventured into straw-man territory, in addition to indulging in unsafe assumptions. There's absolutely no evidence that Geno's comments which you reference played any part in the NCAA's decision. Again, amid a severe shortage of data, outsiders seize on what little is known to make leaps in logic and construct a narrative that seems plausible on the face of it and/or caters to their preconceived notions.

Same thing with the "toxic environment" part. We don't even know that this per se was part of the rationale presented in the application. It's also entirely possible that the biggest problems Evina experienced came from sources other than the coaching staff who were replaced.

You've doubled down on conflating support for a waiver request with an admission of weakness in the program. I guess that's the narrative that for whatever reason you feel wedded to.

Do you honestly think a head coach saying “I don’t want her here” doesn’t play a factor in the NCAA granting immediate play time? I have to think Geno is smart enough to know what he’s doing when he makes a public comment like that.

I agree with you that there is a large absence of facts here. Assumptions are abound on both sides, but isn’t conjecture what message boards are for?


My final thought before I head out... I really believe Tennessee’s job here is to grant the transfer request with no limitation. That was done. After that, it’s up to Uconn to push for the waiver request. Any statement from Tennessee supporting her request to play immediately is an admission of guilt. It is impossible to support her right to play immediately without also admitting the environment was unsuitable. Its all good to support a student athlete, but if there are claims that the environment could “warrant an investigation”, why on earth would a school admit to that? That kills your brand.

 

[CL82]

Do you honestly think a head coach saying “I don’t want her here” doesn’t play a factor in the NCAA granting immediate play time? I have to think Geno is smart enough to know what he’s doing when he makes a public comment like that.

Maybe probably less than a program saying we support her playing immediately as UConn did rather than opposing or just being silent as Tennessee did. Really what kind of sick vindictive person penalizes a kid for wanting to leave? I hope every recruit pays attention to the programs who will still support even if you chose to leave.

 

[CL82]

Any statement from Tennessee supporting her request to play immediately is an admission of guilt. It is impossible to support her right to play immediately without also admitting the environment was unsuitable. Its all good to support a student athlete, but if there are claims that the environment could “warrant an investigation”, why on earth would a school admit to that? That kills your brand.

Um, character?

Basic decency?

Respect for the kids that they recruited?

Taking responsibility for past mistakes?

 

[soxfan23]

Respectfully, I’d like to add another orange perspective here.

I watched evina play for two years under holly here. Her first season started great.There was tremendous excitement around the program, and we thought we’d turned a corner. There were myriad chemistry issues that led to the lack of success that season and the following. I think evina played while not 100 percent quite often. This led to what some called lackluster efforts (especially on defense). Holly was not able to get the best out of evina (or anyone for that matter).
I saw a tremendous amount of support for evina while she was here both on campus and off. We are a passionate fan base that loves our players. There are bad fans in every group that harp on the negative. I remember mama Westbrook posting on the summitt often. When she would stick up for her daughter, 95 percent of posters agreed with her. The remaining five percent had valid points as well. Evina did not live up to her potential as a lady vol. It may have been the staff, it may have been injuries l, it may have been disengagement. I think it was a combination of all the above.
I was upset when evina spoke publicly about her frustration with the situation at Tennessee. Emotions run high in sports but you have to leave that between you and the team. Basic media 101. She entered the portal but stuck around campus to “weigh her options”. She saw kellie hired and met with her multiple times. Kellie finally pressed her into a decision and evina decided to go. We as fans were understandably disappointed but most wished her well. Then she got petty on social media and made it a lot worse for herself. It’s clear she felt slighted or hurt by UT in some way, and that came out in her “sorry not sorry” post. I try to take actions of teenage girls with a grain of salt, but given the history between our two programs, it’s proven to be a difficult thing to do here.
All that to say, I see no reason Tennessee has to advocate for evina to be approved to play right away. If evina’s point is that this environment was so toxic she couldn’t stay, admitting that publicly by supporting her request would be recruiting suicide. And this is because she made the decision to go after kellie was hired. She could have withdrawn from the portal, but she deemed kellie’s program to not suit her needs. That’s okay, that’s what the portal is for, but you don’t get to say the environment was toxic when that toxicity was removed before you made your decision to leave. I think this is why the NCAA ruled against immediate eligibility. Just because you put your name in the portal, doesn’t mean you’ve decided to transfer. When the decision was made formally, all the reasons she publicly stated for a transfer had been resolved.

You, me, or anyone else on this forum, has NO idea what reasons were given by Westbrook on her waiver request.

 

[soxfan23]

Um, character?

Basic decency?

Respect for the kids that they recruited?

Taking responsibility for past mistakes?

Oh no, it's only do the right thing if it doesn't affect Tennessee's recruiting!