Freshman Forward Declared Eligible by NCAA Clearinghouse

This is the news Friar fans were waiting to hear and the NCAA has finally given their final ruling: Ben Bentil can play. The news was first reported by The Providence Journal’s Kevin McNamara.

After a tense few months, which included Bentil not being allowed to go on the team’s planned trip to Italy in August, Ed Cooley and Bentil finally got good news from the NCAA Clearinghouse. It’s unclear exactly what the holdup was but a source said it had nothing to do with grades or test scores. Cooley pointed generally to Bentil’s schooling in Ghana being the culprit. My guess is that it had to do with the reason Bentil was declared a 5th year senior by the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association: lack of paperwork from Ghana. Bentil came to the United States at age 15 from Ghana. Upon getting to the US he enrolled at the Haverford School (PA) for his freshman season before transferring to St. Andrew’s (DE) for his final 3 high school seasons.

According to his coach at St. Andrews, Bentil attended a school from May-July in Ghana before he left for the US. The DIAA interpreted this to be a full year because they had no proof it was only for those 3 months. The potential issues with Bentil starting high school in Ghana and then doing 4 years of high school in the US: 1) it could be a violation of NCAA bylaws which require a certain number of core courses to be completed by a certain time; 2) it could fall under a delayed enrollment which would have meant Bentil had to sit a year in residence and lose a year of eligibility. Luckily it doesn’t matter what the issue is because Bentil is cleared for competition.

After learning that redshirt freshman Rodney Bullock would be lost for the year with a torn ACL, getting Bentil cleared became even more critical for the Friars’ success. Combine the need for depth with reports out of early practices that Bentil has been arguably the most impressive player in most rehearsals on the entire team and you can start to understand how big this is for Ed Cooley. With Bentil being eligible it means Cooley will have 11 healthy and eligible scholarship players to choose from to make up his rotation. He told John Rooke during his most recent radio show that he looks less for a starting 5 and more for a group of 9 players to rotate. Bentil will undoubtedly be part of that 9 man rotation.

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Mike Hopkins

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