Cal Basketball: Bears Await Updates on Jarred Hyder and Their December Schedule

Mark Fox suggested a rule change could make the Fresno State transfer eligible

Cal doesn’t know when it might play its next basketball game, but coach Mark Fox hopes to have one more player available when it does happen and going forward with the rest of this season.

While the Bears’ scheduled trip east before Christmas is in question after a COVID-19 situation arose with an opponent, Fox said Sunday he hopes to get good news from the NCAA this week on transfer guard Jarred Hyder’s eligibility status.

Hyder, a sophomore from Fresno State, was denied a waiver by the NCAA last month that could have made him immediately eligible this season as a transfer. Typically, basketball players must sit out a year after transferring but the NCAA has granted waivers to countless players this season, so Fox has expressed confusion about why Hyder did not get the same treatment.

Now, it seems, things may change for Hyder and every player across the country in his position.

“There’s hope the NCAA will change a rule this week that will allow Jarred to become eligible. That would be big news for us,” Fox said after the Bears’ 72-70 win over USF on Sunday afternoon.

The NCAA, earlier this fall, pushed back to January a proposal that would have granted a one-time transfer exemption to athletes in all sports. Currently, baseball, football, men’s and women’s basketball and ice hockey players are not eligible to transfer and compete without a waiver.

A potential change to the rule — perhaps sooner than January, Fox suggested — would create uniformity that currently does not exist.

Fox said that Hyder suffered an injury in practice a couple weeks ago, so his availability right now isn’t clear.

“When he didn’t get his waiver we shut it down to let it heal,” Fox said. “So it will take him some time if that rule change goes through but he will be a welcome addition.”

Hyder, a 6-foot-3 native of San Bernardino, can play either guard position and would presumably give the Bears a boost at point guard, where they have yet to develop consistency. Hyder averaged 9.1 points and 3.1 assists at Fresno State last season, starting 24 games.

When the Bears play next is up for grabs because of a COVID situation involving an unannounced opponent on a two-game trip to the East Coast. Cal is scheduled to play at Boston College on Dec. 22 — a game that still shows on both teams’ online schedules — but issues with the other team may put the kibosh on the trip.

“I think it’s fair to say the East Coast trip is probably in jeopardy,” Fox said on his post-game radio show Sunday.

Fox said Cal is working to find a couple replacement games closer to home that would fill the gap between the end of final exams next week and the start of the resumption of the Pac-12 schedule at Oregon on Dec. 31.

“We’re trying to find games because it would be a long break,” Fox said of a potential stretch of 19 days between Sunday’s game against the Dons and a New Year’s Eve game in Eugene.

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Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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