Will Olivier Sarr Be Able to Play for John Calipari and Kentucky Next Season?

SI's Pat Forde shares the Sarr news and discusses the issues that might surround his eligibility

Pat Forde | May 7, 2020

Kentucky basketball picked up a potentially huge transfer this week in seven-foot Wake Forest Center Olivier Sarr, he's a 14.9 rebounds per game guy, and this Kentucky team is has a glaring hole in the middle.

John Calipari teams at Kentucky have always had at least two players, six-foot-ten or taller. This year, so far, they have none. So if they can add Sarr immediately, that helps them a lot.

But will he be eligible immediately? That's the big question. The NCAA really transfer policy has been under a lot of scrutiny and discussion. The NCAA Management Council met last week and they want to still take a further look at that issue, but they declined the option to change it immediately.

I think they were worried about adding an immediate transfer policy for one time in this current pandemic situation. Afraid that this would be just one more bit of upheaval for schools that are currently going through quite a bit of transition and uncertainty.

As Donna Shalala, the senator, pointed out to Ross Dellenger, my colleague, if USC isn't playing football in the fall: what if thirty-three players decide they want to leave USC and go somewhere else? That could be a pretty chaotic situation.

It's no sure thing for Olivier Sarr, that he will get his eligibility. They can file a waiver, they can try to make a case. But usually when a player leaves the school because of a coaching change, which is the case here, Danny Manning was fired at Wake Forest, waivers are not granted. So he's got an uphill battle most likely to gain eligibility at Kentucky. This will be a hot button issue going forward, but it may not be resolved in time for Olivier Sarr to suit up for Kentucky in the next college basketball season.

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Published May 7, 2020

PAT FORDE

Pat Forde is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers college football and college basketball as well as the Olympics and horse racing. He cohosts the College Football Enquirer podcast and is a football analyst on the Big Ten Network. He previously worked for Yahoo Sports, ESPN and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Forde has won 28 Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest awards, has been published three times in the Best American Sports Writing book series, and was nominated for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. A past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and member of the Football Writers Association of America, he lives in Louisville with his wife. They have three children, all of whom were collegiate swimmers.