If what you say is true, then I have no issue at all with what transpired. This is the first I have heard of Vassar initiating his withdrawal from the team. That simple fact would change everything in my mind. Not sure why that fact, if true, has not been disseminated more broadly by the University.
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If what you say is true, then I have no issue at all with what transpired. This is the first I have heard of Vassar initiating his withdrawal from the team. That simple fact would change everything in my mind. Not sure why that fact, if true, has not been disseminated more broadly by the University.
Because it would be extremely dumb of the University to put forth anything granular in the midst of an ongoing lawsuit.
I'm not so sure I agree with this. For example, my son has a partial scholarship (in music, not sports) and for him to maintain it each year, he has to meet certain expectations. While that can be open to interpretation, I tend to give the program director/coach some leeway to decide that. If Vassar was not meeting certain expectations (and they have to be the same for everyone, so you can't just throw him off the team because he doesn't start or score enough or whatever), then there should be a mechanism to revoke his scholarship. I realize there are some dangers there, but I can't imagine a scholarship is absolutely guaranteed for four years unless you do something criminal.
Tactfully letting it be known that Vassar was the one who initiated his departure from the team would have absolutely no bearing on the legal case. Of course one very good reason for not publicly disseminating that fact is if it were not true.
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Vassar contends that Collins and the assistants tried to push him out by telling him he would never play and then urging him repeatedly to fill out and sign a scholarship release form.
Thank you for sharing this perspective. I’ve heard a similar version. The scenario you’ve laid out is akin to a player entering the transfer portal, renouncing his scholarship and then wanting back in when there were an insufficient number of other opportunities. In this case Vassar verbally announced his intentions and then decided he wanted back in. It appears the University did the right thing in honoring the scholarship despite Vassar “quitting” the team. I can’t blame the head coach for not wanting him back on the active roster after he had a change of heart.
That’s a slippery slope employed at most other schools to let unscrupulous coaches get rid of their mistakes. I am not in favor of that approach.
I’ve heard that as well and that context would make the previous poster’s contention untrue in my opinion. I would not characterize that as a voluntary departure from the team initiated by Mr. Vassar.
In cases like these, the transfer portal is a good thing as it clearly defines the intentions of the player and protects the University from players that change their minds. It gives some control back to the team.
It’s certainly conceivable that Vassar had an issue with his playing time and became disenfranchised with his role on the team. The fact he transferred FOUR times in four years of high school shows a track record of declaring his intentions to find another school. It just so happened the transfer process in college is/was much more complicated than in high school.
It’s certainly possible. This is by no means a black and white issue but given what I have heard, including what’s been posted on this thread, I tend to believe the staff tried to push him out. I usually give the student athletes the benefit of the doubt in these type of situations partly because I have seen so many instances of unscrupulous coaches and universities over the years screwing over the kids. It’s one of the main reasons I am such a big fan of Pat Fitzgerald. I believe he genuinely cares about the young people in his program. I wish I could feel the same way about NU’s basketball coach.
Best not to give a clearly litigious kid and his family any kind of opening whatsoever.
Honest question. It seems like when Fitz doesn't invite certain players to return for a fifth year, no one bats an eyelash. But if Collins does the same, he's vilified. Is it because of roster size? Is a football coach allowed more freedom to miss on guys or "not develop" them? I've always wondered this.
I don’t have any issue with either Fitz or Collins not inviting players back for a fifth year nor have I have ever voiced a concern over this. That’s not a reasonable expectation that a student athlete should have when a scholarship is offered. It’s completely within the coaches discretion to make that decision.
I hear ya corbi. I tend to agree with you in this area. However in this particular case, I’m not feeling it. The story that was conveyed in the earlier post seems extremely plausible to me. It’s also not the first time I’ve heard it portrayed in this manner.
It depends on you define pushed out. I have zero issue with a coach in any sport giving the player an honest assessment of his projected playing time and role in the team. I don’t believe you do either. This is what I believe happened. CCC recruited the kid and at worse he was better than the walk ons used as practice flodder. Humiliation is being nailed to the end of the bench. NU was short bodies every year. A practice body beats a janitor and only reason he isn’t on the team would be the team is worse with him around.
CCC had nothing to gain and everything to lose by forcing him off the team and into a janitor role. Nothing! Public shaming of a recruited player would not sit well with the current team or any perspective recruits. The whole Vassar explanation doesn’t sound reasonable to me. Not only would CCC have to be incredibly ignorant but so would every other administrator with in the Athletic Department, including Dr. Jim. I give the staff a little more credit.
This thread has spent a lot of time re-litigating the Vassar case but I think the real reason there were protestors outside Morty's house last weekend was due to the cheerleader lawsuit and subsequent damning social media messages from former cheerleaders.
You think 500 students showed up to protest because of the claims in Jonny Vassars 3 year old lawsuit? No way. It's the #metoo factor here.
You think 500 students showed up to protest because of the claims in Jonny Vassars 3 year old lawsuit? No way. It's the #metoo factor here.
Because Fitz has a long track record of developing talent that Collins doesn’t. Both programs are developmental; we’re at our best when we have upperclassman-laden teams, and we’ve struggled when we don’t have that experience. Because Collins hasn't been able to put together many rosters with a ton of experience together, we haven’t been able to benefit from that experienced roster (like the kind we made the Tourney run with, or the kind that most mid-major Cinderellas tend to have).
Whether the problem is initial talent identification and recruiting, player development, or something else entirely is both up for debate and ultimately irrelevant. It’s just that we’ve gotten into a cycle for around 5 years now that THIS next recruiting class is gonna be the one that sends us into the stratosphere, except they haven’t yet and it’s hard to keep counting on it. We need the player development to be better, and we need those guys to exhaust their eligibility here. Or we need to recruit players who are capable of developing to the point that not offering them the extra year in order to offer a spot to the next lottery ticket isn’t even a thought.
As with most things that end up in litigation, I suspect the situation was muddier and more nuanced than both sides have portrayed. Even after rereading the Vice article, I can easily envision this as a situation where Vassar was not getting playing time, had repeatedly voiced his displeasure over it, and the relationship between him and the coaches had broken down to the point of becoming a problem in the locker room--thus leading to a mutual discussion of a transfer. Things might have gotten muddier when, after the transfer was announced, Vassar saw the transfer market was not as receptive as he had expected and declined to sign the roster deletion form. This would have put NU in an awkward position. When was the last time you saw a team accept a player back after he had announced an intention to transfer? NU might have chosen the middle ground of offering an alternative path to staying in school--something that arguably was appropriate for a non-participant but that Vassar viewed as stigmatizing and further reducing his marketability. As someone else noted, the transfer portal--despite its drawbacks--might have created more clarity as to what happens in these situations.
CCC wanted vassar to transfer so the scholarship would be freed up. So he had a lot to gain.
Call me skeptical on that detail as well. It is not easy to switch a healthy kid from an athletic scholarship to an academic scholarship without running afoul of NCAA regulations.
I don't think that's the case...they had to bite the bullet and ride things out as he remained on scholarship. There may have been grounds to terminate the scholarship based on Vassar's actions, but the University did not pursue that avenue.
This conversation seems circular to me. Wasn't the entire premise of the alleged controversy that Collins was trying to run Vassar off to get the scholarship back? How that jives with what I understand are NCAA rules that scholarships are year to year is beyond me other than NU has a practice of honoring scholarships for four years absent other factors. Plus the NCAA does not allow, or at least, restricts switching athletic to academic scholarships. So NU and NCAA tied Collins hands. As I recall Collins never could use that scholarship. So since Vassar wasn't allowed to play, he was required by NU to work. The issue there is whether the work was demeaning. So Vassar gets his scholarship, Collins doesn't get another scholarship player and Vassar felt disrespected and is/was suing on this basis plus whatever his attorney could work up.
Correct? Old ground I know but this thread seems to be going round and round.
Correct? Old ground I know but this thread seems to be going round and round.
Nothing in NCAA rules that says scholarships are Year to year. That used to be the common practice but more and more schools have changed that approach in recent years.
According to the links below, the NCAA has allowed schools to offer multi-year scholarships (as opposed to just year-to-year) since 2012. In 2015, the P5 conferences adopted a rule prohibiting a school from revoking a scholarship for athletic performance reasons, with that new rule applying only to players who signed NLIs after January 1, 2016.
https://informedathlete.com/the-facts-about-guaranteed-multi-year-ncaa-di-scholarships/
https://www.sportsengine.com/recruiting/are-athletic-scholarships-guaranteed-4-years
I believe Nance has developed as expected. He was always going to be a long term investment.
I believe Young has developed beyond anyone's reasonable expectations.
Same with Chase. He was not a HS star. And not a prominent transfer opportunity. But he's coming along very nicely. Has shown flashes of dominance at a high level. All BIG is in the cards for him over the next couple of years.
My only developmental disappointment on the current roster is Beran. I was expecting more by now. Buie is Buie. A lightly recruited guard with physical and fundamental limitations who wildly exceeds his limitations from time to time. Presses to repeat the exception and then tanks.
My point is we have some hits and some misses. I don't think any of it reflects poorly on the "coach up" ability of our staff.
Vassar was an incredibly gifted athlete with skills. My sense is he had a much different vision of what he could/should be than the coaching staff and the rest of the basketball world. Materially different visions don't co-exist for long. As we saw here. I think he could have been a valuable contributor, possibly more had he dedicated himself to CCC's vision.
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I maintain that the high ankle sprain he suffered in the second game against IU ruined his season, but it's also not like he lit it up in the two games against Pitt and MSU before that injury, so 🤷♂️
But reportedly, Vassar's scholarship was changed from an athletic scholarship to an academic scholarship. Why do that, and then not use the newly freed athletic scholarship?
And the pending lawsuit(s) might've had something to do with it.
Brian James is a very good developmental coach. Pardon is probably the single best success story they've had. The bigs, as you say, have generally been better over Collins' tenure. That's an NBA quality coach molding these guys. I don't have much issue with our player development at that spot, even though guys like Benson and (to a much greater extent) Jared Jones left early.
Since the Mac/Lindsey/Law trio, we've struggled mightily with guards and wings. We simply haven't had good enough play from those positions. Looking at the recruiting classes of non-bigs:
2015: Falzon and Ash. Neither exhausted their eligiblity at NU. Ash is a great kid who didn't see the court much. Falzon won a couple of games with his shooting and was injured a lot.
2016: Isiah Brown and Ivanauskas. Brown was a bench role/rotational player on the Tournament team and left before his upperclassman years. Ivanauskas didn't really play here.
2017: Gaines is a great kid, but he was a rotational player on bad teams and left before exhausting eligibility.
2018: Kopp and Greer. Kopp was a solid sophomore but flopped as a junior and bailed. Greer's story isn't completely written yet, but he hasn't been an impact player in his time so far.
2019: Buie and Beran. Plenty of talent there, haven't seen the consistent results necessary to win in the Big Ten yet. Crucial season for both coming up.
2020: Berry. An extraordinarily difficult situation for Ty this year, between adjusting to Big Ten play, Covid, and the sad loss of his father. I'm certainly not writing him off yet. His play wasn't great, but he more than deserves a mulligan.
We don't need to delve back into recruiting cases like Lathon. That's been played out.
Transfers: Ryan Taylor flopped. A.J. Turner, really good kid, was worse in his two years here than he was in his soph year at BC. Pat Spencer was a fun story on an awful team, but I think we can all agree that the future is probably not in lacrosse grad transfers. Audige is the most promising of them all so far; let's hope he can improve his shooting and iron out some inconsistencies on offense moving forward. There should be plenty more juice for the squeeze there.
On the whole? It just hasn't been good enough from these positions. Call it recruiting, call it talent identification, call it talent development, call it noise, whatever anyone wants. Our teams have been bad the last 4 years because most of our players haven't been good enough to win Big Ten games anywhere near a consistent basis.
Then why bother going through the hassle of moving it to an academic scholarship?
What were they trying to accomplish?
My take is that the situation got sufficiently toxic that Collins simply didn't want Vassar around the team anymore.
I think tge point is that it wasn’t converted to an academic scholarship because that was not allowed by NCAA rules. He remained on basketball scholarship but was not part of the team.
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