Mitchell to leave Duquesne program

[OceanStateBonnie]

from the Duquesne athletic website. Note the last paragraph also where a transferring JUCO was denied admission.

Robert Mitchell to Transfer

2006-07 Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year voluntarily withdraws from team



Aug. 29, 2007


Head men's basketball coach Ron Everhart announced today that sophomore forward Robert Mitchell (Brooklyn, N.Y./Notre Dame Prep) has received his release from Duquesne University, clearing the way for his transfer to another school.

"Rob felt that it would be in his best interest to pursue a transfer and we accommodated him," said Everhart. "Rob is a great kid and we wish him the best."

The 6-6, 180-pound Mitchell averaged a team-high 16.4 points per game - a scoring average that ranked ninth among the nation's Division I freshmen - on his way to earning Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year honors last season. Mitchell, who was named A-10 Rookie of the Week a league-high five times, was just the second Duke to earn league Rookie of the Year honors, joining Bruce Atkins who was named R-O-Y in 1978-79.

"We have had some very competitive practices in the past week," said Everhart whose Dukes have been practicing since August 20 in preparation for the school's first-ever foreign tour over Labor Day weekend. "I like our depth and team chemistry and I feel confident we are going to have a pretty good basketball team."

Duquesne, which leaves Friday for a four-games-in-three-days trip to Toronto, will now return three starters, including eight of the top ten scorers from last season's 10-19 team - Everhart's first as head coach of the Dukes.

In additional news, Ricky Jackson (Canton, Ohio/McKinley/Cloud County Community College), a 6-7, 210-pound sophomore transfer from Cloud County (Kan.) Community College, has been denied admission to Duquesne and has been released from his National Letter of Intent.

[jmct]

On top of Mitchell transferring out (and Scott Grote transferring out ahead of him), and Ricky Jackson being denied admission, Duquesne is also still waiting on word from the NCAA on frosh Bill Clark.

BTW, Duquesne saying they "denied admission" to RIcky Jackson is a bit dishonest, to say the least. He was accepted and was already on campus. Then the NCAA Clearinghouse said he was not eligible about two days ago, which meant he couldn't get an athletic scholarship. Only then did Duquesne say he was "denied admission". Duquesne had known everything about his academic record for months - seems to be a problem if they just now claim he was denied admission after accepting him back in the spring.

[mangham]

I'm sure they've been cleared. Rumors of these two accepting scholarships have been circulating for months. I'm sure the University did their due diligence. I know Delonte was reported to have a 3.66 gpa out of high school.

[93jb]

Thanks Mangham.

Somehow I deleted my post that you responded to.

That was the answer I was looking for. Sounds like Schmidt has some talent to work with, last thing we need now is eligibility concerns.