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The Bellarmine males’s basketball workforce continues to attraction for the prospect to compete within the NCAA Match. Senior guard Justin Betz wrote a letter to the NCAA to plead for the workforce’s likelihood to qualify and compete in subsequent season’s match.
«There’s nothing extra highly effective than a neighborhood of individuals combating for what they know is correct,» Betz wrote in a letter he shared with The Courier Journal on Friday. «I simply ask that the NCAA and all events concerned are additionally combating for what is correct, what’s greatest for the student-athletes and collaborating Division I establishments. I really imagine there isn’t any higher time than now to rethink a rule that was put into place over 25 years in the past.»
The Knights made nationwide information in March after they gained the ASUN Match championship, simply two years after they made the leap from Division II to DI. The ASUN champion receives an computerized bid to the NCAA Match. However a decades-old NCAA rule bars packages making such a leap from competing within the school spectacle for 4 years.
Betz states within the letter that he has fielded quite a few questions on why did not Bellarmine qualify for the match — the Knights opted out of the postseason totallyas nicely — and it frustrates him that he does not have a transparent reply for followers.
«‘Why could not you all play within the NCAA Match? You earned it,’ » he wrote. «‘Has the NCAA given you a cause why issues cannot change?’ There have been a whole bunch of interactions and questions similar to this to which I’ve but to formulate an correct reply for.»
He additionally acknowledged the workforce knew of the rule and the accompanying transition interval, however pointed to convention and league oversight in addition to Bellarmine’s efficiency since shifting as much as Division I as proof that the present circumstances make the rule out of date.
«Cannot all of us agree instances have modified?» Betz wrote. «Bellarmine College was invited by the ASUN to hitch the convention and is ruled by mentioned convention. We’re additionally overseen by an NCAA transition company that evaluates our progress and efficiency, and we’ve got exceeded each benchmark that was positioned upon our transition- particularly tutorial excellence.»
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Betz mentioned he grew up as a toddler of two College of Louisville graduates and the way watching a few of his favourite gamers like Francisco Garcia and Tyquan Dean impressed him to develop into a school basketball participant. The primary recreation he went to as a toddler was at Freedom Corridor.
«I am standing in Freedom Corridor as soon as once more,» Betz wrote, describing the workforce’s ASUN championship. «Solely this time, I am at middle courtroom. I bear in mind wanting up in direction of my previous seat in part 329, as near the rafters as you may get. We have been about to play for one thing that solely 32 groups in your complete nation get to play for: a convention match championship.»
The sensation on Choice Sunday when the commentators talked about Bellarmine’s exclusion from the match it was painful, he mentioned.
«We have been dreading the mundane sound of ‘Bellarmine is not eligible to play within the NCAA Match,'» Betz wrote. «It was a intestine punch that we had no cause to be on the receiving finish of.»
Betz thought utilizing the letter to attraction to the NCAA might put a extra human contact on the workforce’s message and present how the rule was affecting the gamers in actual time.
«Coach (Scott Davenport) and I have been speaking, and we agreed that it might be a very good factor for the NCAA to listen to from a student-athlete’s perspective,» Betz advised The Courier Journal. «Typically, they do not essentially understand how their choices have an effect on us. I believed it might be extra highly effective to talk from my finish of issues and specific how not being within the NCAA Match impacts not solely myself however my teammates.”
Bellarmine filed a waiver with the NCAA, and the Board of Administrators has till Aug. 3 to determine whether or not the Knights shall be eligible for inclusion within the 2023 NCAA Match. Betz hopes his letter connects emotionally with the choice makers and leads them to re-examine what the workforce considers an outdated rule.
«Any child’s purpose taking part in Division I basketball is to play in March Insanity,» he mentioned. «We made a historic run final yr, and we weren’t rewarded accordingly for the success we had. I want they’d take one other take a look at it and rethink their preliminary reasoning for the rule.”
If the NCAA doesn’t raise its necessities, Bellarmine has two years left in its transition interval earlier than they’d be match eligible.
«These gamers deserve it,» mentioned Davenport, who added that making an attempt to attraction for the rule to be waived or overturned has consumed him. «I lay my head down each evening, and I hope and dream that occurs due to the younger individuals. That is 4 of the best years of those student-athletes’ lives. That is concerning the gamers.
Attain Jonathan Saxon at JSaxon@gannett.com or 502-715-1393 and observe him on Twitter at @TheSleepyScribe.
This text initially appeared on the Louisville Courier Journal: Bellarmine’s Juston Betz writes NCAA letter pleading for rule change