The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
For Westbrook, waiting is the hardest part
STORRS — Evina Westbrook says she prepares each day as if she will play this UConn season. Geno Auriemma says he remains optimistic about the NCAA granting a waiver to the transfer from Tennessee that will allow her immediate eligibility.
“I do,” Auriemma said. “I feel good about it.”
And then UConn’s Hall of Fame women’s basketball coach compared the entire process to dealing with the most maddening bureaucracy known to mankind since the invention of the Ford Model T.
“Sending a waiver to the NCAA is like making a phone call or writing a letter to the DMV,” Auriemma said. “It’s anybody’s guess when you’re going to get a response.
“We don’t know anything.” The answer could come today. The answer could tomorrow. The answer could come on Halloween, the day before the first exhibition game, like it did with Jessica Shepard at Notre Dame in 2017.
“I’d literally just done a workout with the (backups) because we didn’t think I’d be playing,” Shepard told reporters at the 2018 Final Four after she led the Irish with 19 points in the dramatic victory over Mississippi State for the national championship. “And they just walked in the gym and said I was cleared.”
There’s something disconcerting in all this. Something feels wrong. So much work, so much planning and perspiration and, yes, money goes into building the premier programs in college basketball. And then more than one top school — all the top opponents — are left hanging until the start of the season as the NCAA takes its time to issue a ruling?
“A lot goes into putting an
appeal together,” Auriemma said. “That of itself, took some time for Evina, her parents, our compliance department to get everything lined up, get everything done, make sure it’s exactly what’s needed. Now it’s in their hands. They’ll probably tell you we have a ton of cases we’re dealing with. Would I like to hear sooner than later? For sure. Sometimes these decisions come at the last minute, and it can have a huge impact on a particular team.”
The NCAA does not publicly explain its decision nor the factors that were presented to them in the waiver request. Shepard said she was left in doubt about the direction of the program at Nebraska a year after a coaching change from Connie Yori to Amy Williams and wanted to go where she could develop into the best post player possible and win championships. It certainly worked out for Shepard. Knocking out UConn both years, Notre Dame won it all in 2018 and got to the NCAA Finals in 2019.
In his initial tooearly Top 25, Charlie Creme of ESPN ranked UConn, with the graduation of Napheesa Collier and Katie Lou Samuelson, No. 7 for the coming season. On Sept. 4, after Westbrook had transferred, UConn was bumped up to No. 3.
Westbrook, the No. 2 recruit in the nation in 2017, averaged 14.9 points and 5.3 assists as a sophomore last season. With Crystal Dangerfield and Christyn Williams and freshman Ania Makurat, Westbrook could well form the best backcourt in the nation. She could be the difference between an Elite Eight and a 13th successive trip to the Final Four. She could be the difference between a Final Four and UConn’s 12th national title. Her eligibility isn’t a trifling matter.
“I’m anxious,” Westbrook said. “It’s tough not knowing. It’s a waiting game at this point.”
Westbrook’s decision to leave Tennessee was announced in midApril. Her decision to transfer to UConn was announced in midMay. With Tennessee’s change in coaches from Holly Warlick to Kellie Harper, it would in recent years likely help tilt the scales in Westbrook’s favor.
In June, however, the NCAA announced it was tightening some of the loopholes in transfer waivers. Every appeal is examined on a casebycase basis. You never know.
With so many transfer appeals, it certainly takes time for the NCAA to make sober decisions. Yet with billions made from March Madness, so much money in college athletics, how about staffing enough qualified people to make decisions quicker than a week prior to the season opener?
This is supposed to be about the studentathletes, right? Why would you string them along and put so much continued stress on them during an academic semester? And for its own good, why wouldn’t the NCAA address the highest profile cases quicker. The longer cases like like Shepard and Westbrook drag on the more cynical thoughts surface and the more cries of playing favorites surface.
Unless there are extraordinary circumstances, this stuff shouldn’t go past Sept. 1
“All you can do is put down on paper this is what happened, this is why I left, this my scenario, this is my situation,” Auriemma said. “You’re not going to go there and have a hearing. You’re not going to be able to bring someone with you and plead you case. It’s not like that. You try to get as much as information as you can. Put it all in front of them and then cross your fingers.”
He doesn’t want to cross the NCAA prior to a call on Evina.
“I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to make the case for her,” Auriemma said. “They have all the information they need. They’re going to have to come to a yes we agree, or no we disagree.”
Auriemma said he has been coaching as if he will have Westbrook in the lineup and will not have her.
“I put her out there just enough so if we have her, she feels comfortable,” Auriemma said. “And I put her out there just enough so if we don’t have her, I’m not costing somebody else the time they need out there. It’s a juggling act until we find out.”
Westbrook underwent surgery on her left knee June 4. Auriemma said she’s still not 100 percent.
“It’s going pretty well,” said Westbrook, who’ll take a few drills off if the knee gets cranky. “I have good days, bad days, great days. Shea Ralph (assistant coach) has been really helpful with her knowledge, having her knee surgeries herself.”
“We haven’t seen what she can do,” Auriemma said. “A little bit here and three. Regardless of waiver or no waiver, I don’t think we’re going to figure that one out until she has been here a couple of months and gotten 100 percent healthy. Right now she’s not there.
“I don’t know where (Westbrook’s) biggest strengths lie. We’ve been preparing for anything that might happen. We’ve tried playing Crystal at a lot of different spots on the floor — she has the ball a lot, doesn’t have the ball a lot — different scenarios. I don’t know yet if Evina sees herself as a playmaker and then a scorer or a scorer and then a playmaker. I know she works hard.”
Westbrook says she’ll play anywhere, do anything needed. Asked what the biggest change on the court for her at UConn is, she answers that she loves Auriemma’s demand for consistency every day.
“This is definitely were I’m supposed to be,” Westbrook said. “The style of play, I love it. The offense is going to be incredible this year.
“In the back of my mind, I knew this could come down to the day before the first game, so I have to prepare myself like I’m playing every game. I envision myself at Gampel or XL playing against certain teams, running plays. Even if my waiver doesn’t go through, I’ve still got to show up to practice every day and make my teammates better.”
All admirable words. Yet Evina Westbrook should have known if she could play this season weeks and weeks ago.