CatsPause.com - Status of Wall remains in question

October 28, 2009

Matt May
CatsPause.com Senior Writer

John Wall took the floor in Kentucky's annual Blue-White scrimmage, dazzling a record crowd for the preseason event with his speed and high-flying dunks. When he's able to give an encore performance remains as murky as a swollen creek.

Both Wall and UK coach John Calipari were questioned about the freshman's reported eligibility concerns after the game but neither offered much in the way of a definitive answer as to whether Wall has been given the green light by the NCAA to play in the Cats' regular season opener against Morehead State on Nov. 13. Wall's eligibility has been in question since Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive confirmed to ESPN.com late last week that Wall and Mississippi State freshman Renardo Sidney faced concerns in that area.

"Right now I'm not really focused on that I'm focused on playing basketball and being a student-athlete," Wall said after scoring 25 points and dishing out 11 assists. "Right now I have no comment I'm just focused on playing basketball. I don't have any comment, I really don't."

The comments came on the same day the 6-foot-4 guard was quoted in a USA Today article as saying he had been waiting as long as five months for an answer from the NCAA about his eligibility. Citing student-athlete privacy laws UK has been mum about the situation since the ESPN story ran.

The approach, while legally backed, did not slow an onslaught of queries to Calipari at the outset of his postgame press conference. Calipari responded, 'Sure, yeah, yeah I do,' to a question as to whether his star recruit would play against Morehead State before being asked to clarify Wall's current status.

"He's been cleared," Calipari said. "He's gone through the Clearinghouse and all that stuff is good."

When asked about Slive's comments and Wall's own admission that he's apparently still waiting for clearance Calipari seemed to downplay the significance of the eligibility concerns.

"That's all stuff that's a private matter and there is probably 10 to 15 kids going through the same thing John is going through," Calipari said. "He's been cleared in every way and the other things they're looking at they are looking at with a lot of kids.

"There are all kinds of different levels of clearance and like I said, there are 10 or 15 players going through the same thing. Let's talk about the scrimmage."

In the aftermath of Wall's sensational debut his teammates offered unconditional support and maintained the issue has not appeared to weigh on the affable freshman's shoulders. Wall repeatedly played to the crowd during the game, exchanged laughs and high-fives with teammates and generally appeared to enjoy the experience.

"John is the same," fellow freshman DeMarcus Cousins said. "It's like it never happened. It's not even an issue."

"He's fine, he's cool," junior Patrick Patterson added. "He's not really worried about it. All of us really believe he is going to play and he believes he's going to play. He's not really paying attention to what the media is saying and everything that people are saying about him not being able to play or being ineligible. I just look at him and see he knows he's going to play and is confident he's going to play."

After holding the no comment line for the first few questions of his time with the media throng in Rupp Arena's underbelly Wall finally gave a glimpse of how he's handling the uncertainty.

"It is what it is," Wall said. "It's just something you've got to deal with."

Watch Calipari's Blue-White Press Conference

Kentucky NEWS

[More]

Latest Headlines:

Resources:

FEATURED PRODUCT