'That's something everybody is monitoring' – Scenario that could majorly impact Tennessee athletics continues to be a large unknown
Many Tennessee Vols basketball fans are holding out hope this offseason that players like Zakai Zeigler and Jordan Gainey will play another season on Rocky Top. Zeigler and Gainey, along with Jahmai Mashack, are out of eligibility. But there's a push for the NCAA to allow players to essentially have five years to play five […]
Many Tennessee Vols basketball fans are holding out hope this offseason that players like Zakai Zeigler and Jordan Gainey will play another season on Rocky Top.
Zeigler and Gainey, along with Jahmai Mashack, are out of eligibility. But there's a push for the NCAA to allow players to essentially have five years to play five seasons without taking a redshirt year. If such a rule is passed, those players would have another season of eligibility (though it's more complicated than it sounds with the looming House vs. NCAA antitrust settlement decision playing a role in whatever happens).
VolQuest's Austin Price joined 104.5 The Zone's Ramon, Kayla, and Will on Tuesday morning and he acknowledged that folks on campus are keeping a close eye on the fifth year situation.
"Obviously, everybody's going to talk about what happens with the five year thing? What does that mean for Gainey or any of the others," said Price. "Rick Barnes has been pretty open about the fact that he could see with the House case likely passing, coming up here in a month and a half or so, the scholarship numbers could go from 13 to 15. Well, all of a sudden you're gonna have three (scholarships), potentially, instead of one. And so everybody can start connecting the dots there.
"I don't know if all that happens to the point where Zakai is back, Mashack, [and] Gainey is back. But obviously, Tennessee is going to be very patient. And that's something everybody is monitoring — including people on campus. So we'll see what happens with the five year deal. I do think that — I'm a firm believer that it's going to pass, at some point, probably in July, maybe it gets to August. When that happens, I'm also a firm believer that as much as they want to say that it's [the rule] going forward, that's not going to fly. I don't know why they would even do that. I think you just say, look, if you've got an extra year and you haven't played professionally, then obviously you would be eligible to return to school."
There are a lot of different opinions out there on what will happen with the House settlement and whether it will allow athletes to have a fifth year of eligibility.
The main takeaway from Price's comments, at least in my opinion, is that Tennessee is watching this unfold like everyone else. Essentially, no one on campus is quite sure what will happen until it all plays out.
There's a chance that Zeigler, Mashack, and/or Gainey could suit up for the Vols for another season (if they choose to in the event that a fifth year of eligibility is granted). But putting a percentage on that chance, at least as of now, is nearly impossible.
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