robin smeulders

a person who works in waldschmidt told me that robin has gained an additional year.
can anyone confirm or deny this ? if true its certainly good news as there will be a number of new players in '10 - 11.

WOW! tha would be great news if it's so. There have been rumblings in the NCAA that the regulations that took his year away were being changed, so it may well be true. following the progress of the proposed ruling changes, the timing is right for the favorable ruling to come down this week.



For those of you who haven't been following the story, here's a quote from an O story last winter

Williams said his longshot hope is that the NCAA will reconsider the rule that penalized Smeulders and reinstate the year of eligibility he lost.

That might be a longshot but it is not out of the realm of possibility. The NCAA established an Amateurism Cabinet to oversee issues pertaining to amateurism, and at its most recent meeting it singled out bylaw 12.1.2, the rule that affected Smeulders, as one to receive further scrutiny at its next meeting in February.

Mike Rogers, chairman of the cabinet, said the "collective professionalism" approach currently embodied in the rule doesn't seem fair.

"I do think there is a growing consensus, at least within the cabinet, that a change needs to be made," he said. "This is an issue of significant interest, and I've received a lot of inquiries about it."

Any change would likely originate with the cabinet, then proceed to the NCAA's legislative counsel and then the board.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pilots/index.ssf/2009/01/ruders_smeulders_story.html

The February meeting seemed to go forward with a change in policy in Robin's favor.

The interesting thing is the rule that was originally cited concerning "collective professionalism"

(e) Competes on any professional athletics team per Bylaw 12.02.4, even if no pay or remuneration for expenses
was received; (Revised: 4/25/02 effective 8/1/02)

It seems like a stretch to disallow Robin's case for full eligibility while allowing AAU teams to give Love and MAYO private busses and family cars and apartments.


On July 17, progress was again made and the NCAA was supposed to finalize their ruling by August 1

NCAA News

A couple of NCAA news reports from August 7 seem to indicate that all the recommendations passed. but specifics aren't given.

You can follow any further developments at

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/ncaa/NCAA/NCAA+News/NCAA+News+Online/2009/Division+I/

Wow... I haven't heard anything about it, but man... if true, AWESOME!

I have always been under the impression that it would take a minor miracle to get that year back.

I've also been really curious to see what happens with Elias Harris of Gonzaga. He played in basically the exact same type of team in Germany but appeared to be on track to not have to lose a year. So maybe UP successfully argued that if the NCAA granted Harris four years they need to grant Smeulders four years? Who knows?

That is FANTASTIC news, it makes the drop off after losing TJ and Nik that lest bleak. Returning scorers in Robin and Jared would be huge, plus toss in improvement for Waterford and Luke (and any incoming freshmen obvously) we will be set up nicely for continued strong competition in the WCC for sure!

Fingers crossed! This would be a REALLY nice addition to that team (I'm calling it an addition since it was pretty unexpected even a few months ago)

That would be great!!! I'm going to e-mail someone I know who talks to Robin and see what he's heard. That would be nice then Rev. would be able to bring the 2010 freshman bigs along slower rather than throw them to the wolves like Luke,Kramer,...were.

Wow, this would be great... i thought we would hear something this fall... but early news is better!

I hope this is true... and not just a rumor that he is still just trying to get the extra year....

What do you mean by "losing TJ and Nik"...TruRochin? You mean after they graduate?

Yes, unless of course the NCAA grants them a 5th year of playable eligibility...

"Losing Nik and TJ" , AJ it is just a phrase that I wrote too. I imagine that some other choice of words could have been selected.

I do think Nik and TJ will be two major losses to the program,unfortunately they will have used up their college elgibility. Rev does not have the program yet where it is just "reload" not rebuild so Robin returning for his fourth year would be a MAJOR dealio.

Should find out today about Robin. It looks like there should be some kind of release on the whole issue soon since it affect's other europeon college bb players too. I hope it is true the Pilots deserve some good news like this.

The anticipation builds...

I hate to be a downer about this, but I really wouldn't expect this to happen. Of course it's possible, but the NCAA still needs to pass some more legislation before UP could even put in an appeal, and then it would need to be completed before at least the end of the school year.

Beyond that, Robin is a very good student (always on the WCC all-academic team) and is (I assumed) on pace to graduate this spring. Would he even want to stay around another year? He probably misses home.

So yeah... it's worth keeping our eyes open and our fingers crossed, but to be frank, the odds of Robin suiting up in '10-'11 are very slim.

To be honest, I'd written it off as something that simply wouldn't happen. As cool as it would be to see Robin play for another year, I certainly don't have my hopes up.

Either way, we can all look forward to an exciting '09-'10 season, whether it is Robin's last or not.

looking at reveno's twitter today it would seem that any speculation about robin's return for another year will not happen. it seems that march 2 there will be a senior nite held and robin's name is listed alpng with the four other seniors

upsailor wrote:looking at reveno's twitter today it would seem that any speculation about robin's return for another year will not happen. it seems that march 2 there will be a senior nite held and robin's name is listed alpng with the four other seniors

Well, Darren Cooper had 2 senior nights, so I think that classification is just automatic. Better to include him than him having no Senior night at all.


The NCAA still has to enact legislation for Robin to get his year back, But id a comet can cause a mass extinction, the NCAA could do it in the next 3 or 4 meetings.

Bump because I found this today:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=4579737

According to the article, a rule change that would legalize what Robin did could go into effect in August 2010. Of course, that's three months after he would supposedly graduate as of now...