According to this release just a few minutes ago by the NCAA, Enes Kanter has been declared permanently ineligible by the NCAA Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee.
The release says that Kanter is ineligible to practice or travel with the team, but is able to receive financial aid to continue his education at Kentucky. UK has indicated, according to the release, that Kanter will be designated as an undergraduate student-assistant coach.
This was the justification given by the release, in relevant part:
Although a recent NCAA rule change allows prospective student-athletes to compete on teams with professionals while maintaining their amateur status before college enrollment, the membership maintained the longstanding rule that receipt of money above actual and necessary expenses from a professional team is a violation and defines the individual as a professional under NCAA legislation. That was the case here.
More after the jump.
The committee is saying that the staff ruling held that the source of Kanter's excess income was the problem, namely from a professional basketball team. This interpretation essentially forecloses the possibility of a foreign player coming to play NCAA basketball in America if he has earned one penny over the "necessary and allowable" expenses described in rule 12.0.2.4 from a professional team. Exactly how much "actual and necessary" is will be anybody's guess, apparently, but there is no doubt, or at least it is agreed to by everyone, that Kanter received more than that. So based on that interpretation of the rule, the ruling looks defensible.
Thus ends the long saga of Enes Kanter, predictably and no doubt controversially. We here at A Sea of Blue will formulate an appropriate response to the ruling for discussion amongst the members. For now, I wish to remind the Big Blue Nation we have a bowl game and a basketball game to prepare for. There will be plenty of opportunities to examine this matter in depth this weekend.