UCLA Still Mum on Muhammad Appeal
On Friday, UCLA said it was considering an appeal (an interlocutory appeal if you were a legal scholar) of the NCAA’s decision to rule that men’s basketball student-athlete Shabazz Muhammad was ineligible and needed to be reinstated. Now it seems they might not appeal that decision and move on to reinstatement. Maybe:
Instead, the school is formulating its next move while awaiting what the NCAA ultimately decides regarding the highly touted 6-foot-6 swingman’s immediate future — and the NCAA’s decision could be announced as early as this week, according to people close to the situation who are not authorized to speak publicly.
If the school is awaiting an ultimate decision, that would mean UCLA would agree that Muhammad committed a violation, and go onto reinstatement. If UCLA did not like the penalty, then it could still appeal the punishment.
But it’s not clear what the school is doing, and that’s the big problem. If UCLA has not made a decision to appeal or accept the ruling on Muhammad’s eligibility, the case is stuck. The student-athlete reinstatement staff at the NCAA national office might be doing some preliminary work on the case, but no decision can be issued until UCLA decides, given the step-by-step nature of pre-enrollment amateurism decisions.