UCLA freshman Jonah Bolden declared ineligible this year by NCAA

[Russ Smith]

Nobody seems to know why yet. The ESPN story said it had to do with him leaving Australia timing wise being wrong but not clear what that means. We're all speculating the NCAA is questioning if he has enough core classes to qualify except that UCLA admitted him as fully qualified and the story is he's allowed to stay at UCLA, on scholarship, he just can't play this year. They're saying partial qualifier but UCLA does't accept partial qualifiers. Weird story, if he's really a partial I doubt he ever plays for UCLA. My guess is there's some dispute over his transcript so UCLA considers him fully qualified but not cleared by the NCAA.

UCLA is challenging the ruling. There was confusion way back when he left Findlay because it was first reported he was academically ineligible and then later reported Findlay doesn't take 5th year players and had determined because he started HS earlier(in Australia) he was a 5th year player. So he went to Brewster, was immediately eligible and played the whole year and apparently did well academically.

I'm guessing the NCAA is saying he was only allowed to get a certain number of core classes in his 5th year(first in the US) and he exceeded that but nobody seems to know for sure. There's been some talk had he stayed in Australia and finished the year there, he'd be fully eligible. Huge blow he was the primary backup at both the 4 and the 3 and he's thought to be a future NBA player, without him only 7 deep.

 

[Russ Smith]

and the other rumored hammer drops, report out UCLA did not admit Jon Octeus to the grad program he applied for. Fully eligible, graduated Col State but the grad program apparently chose to admit other students with higher GPA's. No idea what program and frankly no problem, grad programs are supposed to be academically motivated not athletically.

What a disaster for Steve Alford.