Michigan Basketball: Potential explanations for the Nojel Eastern silence

Three transfers out, two transfers in. Chaundee Brown makes sense, what about Nojel Eastern to Michigan basketball and why the silence?

Nojel Eastern didn’t live up to the hype out of Evanston Township High School in Evanston, Illinois. No, the 6-foot-7 guard simply couldn’t will his shots into the net. Sure, he’s an exceptional defensive star, but the NBA needs more than that and apparently, and he believes Juwan Howard and Michigan basketball will get him where he needs to go.

Although, since his commitment, there has been radio silence from the university and the Eastern camp.

To complicate matters further, a month before the transfer, Nojel’s mom announced he had entered his name into the NBA draft, which wasn’t his first time Eastern dipped his toes into the overly arduous process that involves certified agents, timelines, and the delicate dance that is the decision to stay or hope to hear your name called by Adam Silver.

Why won’t anyone confirm the news that Nojel, himself, declared on Twitter? Well, it’s likely an academic issue and might not have anything to do with Eastern’s ability to study. Nojel isn’t graduating from Purdue, which means he will probably sit out a year, but that doesn’t have anything to do with this reason for the silence.

“People have to remember Michigan’s transfer requirements are different, just saying,” coach Keith Wade, father of Brandon Wade, told me shortly after the reports came in about the odd situation in Ann Arbor.

Months before that conversation, I spoke with Keith about life and how his son has been dealing with their transfer complications experienced when attempting to join the Wolverines from Duquesne. Coach Wade has plenty of experience with college athletics; he played for Toledo back in the day, and his other son is on the roster at Holy Cross. That is to say, Keith is uniquely suited to give insight into the potential reason for the delay in the official announcement.

Here’s what the Wade’s experienced that could be similar to the Eastern issue:

"“While home for Easter Break Brandon and I sat down with the Coaching staff and Brandon was offered a spot on the team, Brandon accepted the next week but had to wait until his Duquesne Semester was done so that his final grades could be turned in and submitted to admissions. During this delay Coach B left and it was another few weeks in limbo as the coaching search took place. During this time Brandon started receiving offers from schools from the SEC, the Horizon league, the Missouri Valley and the MAC but Brandon was insistent that he was going to wait for Michigan, his dream school. Coach Howard was selected and luckily for Brandon, Coach Saadi Washington stayed on and facilitated the introduction of Brandon and Coach Howard. After a month or (longer) of Coach Howard doing his own research on Brandon he offered Brandon a spot on the team around mid August, he accepted on the spot but by then it was too late for admissions to accept transfers. Brandon took summer and fall courses at Washtenaw CC receiving straight A’s and was finally accepted in December, giving him the OK to start practice Dec 27 and start school 2nd semester.”"

Michigan is just different, and the issue could be with academics. Even if Nojel had the required grades to attend Michigan, not all of them would be accepted, and until all of that is figured out, we might be playing the waiting game. Or…