St. John’s: NCAA denies eligibility appeal for Ian Steere

Head Coach Mike Anderson will have to play the first semester of his inaugural season at St. John’s without Ian Steere. The NC State transfer had has appeal for eligibilty denied by the NCAA.

Ian Steere, who played one game at NC State scoring four points and grabbed four rebounds in five minutes, was denied his Legislative Relief Waiver by the NCAA Tuesday afternoon for immediate eligiblity at St. John’s. The former four-star recruit told Roger Rubin of Newsday about his decision to leave his native North Carolina for the bright lights of New York City.

"“Those [five] minutes weren’t the reason I transferred – a lot of people think that – it wasn’t a factor whether I played; It wasn’t the right fit for me.”"

The Fayetteville, North Carolina native will have to wait until at least December 18 to suit up for St. John’s when the Red Storm plays the University of Albany. While it’s upsetting that Steere won’t be able to dazzle the Johnnies fanbase, the NCAA has denied many relief waivers to great players in all conferences, begging the question: “What is the point of all these waivers?”

Relief waivers are typically used by student-athletes in hopes of playing immediately instead of sitting out a year, commonly known as Redshirting. Two main reasons the NCAA allows college athletes to play automatically is if they didn’t consider moving from the previous institution based on athletics but based on the fact they could no longer afford the school or other hardship reasons. The second condition is that the athlete wants to improve their grades while pondering where their next playing opportunity will be.

However, Anderson has prepared to be without Steere to start the 2019-2020 season. Luckily through three games, the new head coach has gotten great play from his forwards LJ Figueroa, Marcellus Earlington and Julian Champagnie. If the trio continues their high production on the court, Anderson won’t have to feel rushed in incorporating the highly touted transfer into the fold.

With eight games on the Johnnies schedule before Steere becomes eligible, the 6-9 forward should use the opportunity to continue working on learning Anderson’s “40 Minutes of Hell” defensive scheme and his conditioning considering he would only have two games before the Red Storm begin Big East Conference play.

The Carnasecca Arena faithful are salivating for the chance to see Steere, myself included.