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| | Saturday, February 12 | |||||
| NEW YORK -- St. John's successfully appealed the suspension
of sophomore guard Erick Barkley on Thursday and he will play
Saturday against Villanova.
On Tuesday, Barkley, the team's leading scorer at 16.9 points
per game, was suspended by the NCAA for three games for an
undisclosed rules violation. St. John's appealed that ruling even
though he had already served one game -- last Saturday's victory
over Boston College -- and missed a second that night at Providence,
another victory for the Red Storm (15-6).
The Division I Subcommittee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement
upheld St. John's appeal, reducing the suspension to two games.
"Erick is obviously very happy," St. John's coach Mike Jarvis
said Thursday night. "He appreciates the game more than he did
before. He was glad to practice today. Usually it's a chore. ...
You get a sense of how relieved he is because he was concerned
about his image and perception."
Through Jarvis, Barkley said he was going home after practice
and would speak to the media after Saturday's game at Madison
Square Garden.
"Today is a time to move on," St. John's athletic director Ed
Manetta said Thursday. "We're not going to get into specifics of
the case because that has to do with a student's privacy and we're
going to respect that right now."
Manetta wouldn't give details about the process that stretched
almost a week, from notification of the possible violation to the
appeal hearing.
"The NCAA interpreted rules differently than we did," he said.
"The committee today ruled on what we presented and took a middle
decision and that's frequently a good way to resolve them. This
committee heard from both sides and made a decision on that."
The NCAA won't comment on specifics involving a decision without
written permission from the athlete.
The violation in question concerned exchanging cars with a
family friend, two sources familiar with the case have told The
Associated Press.
Barkley traded his late model Jeep Cherokee for a bigger but
older Ford Expedition that belongs to a family friend, said a
source close to Barkley and another with knowledge of the matter,
both speaking on condition of anonymity.
That exchange would have been a violation of NCAA rules if
Barkley received preferential treatment because he is an athlete or
if it constituted possible payback for when he turns professional.
Jarvis said that as far as details, "it was pretty much what
I've been reading in the paper."
"It was just a matter of if the process were different then we
wouldn't have ever had this situation in the first place. This is
about the process. It needs to be changed and improved. You should
be innocent until proven guilty," he said.
"If there was a problem with the fact there was an exchange of
autos among the friends, the first thing was re-exchanging the
cars. Again that would be common sense."
Jarvis made some strong comments about the NCAA last Saturday
when the suspension was announced and he publicly apologized for
using rape when describing his feelings.
"The outrage had to do with the fact that our arguments were
based on common sense and any time someone is wronged when it just
doesn't make sense, then that would obviously make anyone
outraged," he said Thursday.
| ALSO SEE NCAA suspends St. John's guard Barkley for 3 games Barkley-less St. John's hands Friars ninth straight loss St. John's suspends Barkley pending NCAA probe Red Storm slips past BC without Barkley, 59-58 Weekly Watch: Suspending belief  | |||||