Shea Feehan kicked off the Evansville team

[Da Coach]

Peoria native Shea Feehan has been dismissed from the Evansville team. Evansville finished 10th and is the #10 seed playing Thursday against #7 seeded Illinois State, and this should make it an even easier game for ISU.
He did not play Saturday in Evansville's final regular season game, a win at Valparaiso. He was 3rd on the team in scoring with an average of 9.8 ppg and he shot 36.5% from three.
https://www.courierpress.com/story/s...am/3039730002/

Graduate senior Shea Feehan was dismissed from the team for what UE's athletics department termed as a "violation of team standards." Feehan clarified, telling the Courier & Press that it was because of a "failure to meet academic expectations."

McCarty said he and his coaching staff had been monitoring it and gave the Peoria, Illinois native an "ample amount of time" to turn it around.

[tornado]

What the hey??
He's a grad student...and they dismiss him with likely one game left in the season?
And it couldn't have waited until next week?

[Da Coach]

He already has his college degree from Eureka so like a lot of grad transfers, he was probably taking classes he didn't even care about in order to game the NCAA system to get the extra year of eligibility. The only difference is that the coach dismissed him before the season ended. I'll bet most grad transfers quit when their eligibility is used up and never get the graduate degree they claimed they were seeking when they applied for the transfer.

[bradleyfan124]

Feehan was a head case and cheap shot artist. I saw him at games at Eureka. He was a master at flopping at the littlest touch. He did that in the game here

[Da Coach]

That may be a little harsh for me to agree with. I respect that he overcame significant physical limitations and proved that he could play at the D1 level. Even in his 5th year in college, he was listed at Evansville at 6'0", 155 pounds, and I doubt he was really that tall. Yes, he overdid and was very good at the flopping technique. But he believed he needed to do that to help his team, and he picked the right conference since the MVC refs fall for that act more than any refs in America.

[bradleyfan124]

That may be a little harsh for me to agree with. I respect that he overcame significant physical limitations and proved that he could play at the D1 level. Even in his 5th year in college, he was listed at Evansville at 6'0", 155 pounds, and I doubt he was really that tall. Yes, he overdid and was very good at the flopping technique. But he believed he needed to do that to help his team, and he picked the right conference since the MVC refs fall for that act more than any refs in America.

Lol You got that right

[tornado]

We had discussions on this board 4-5 years ago as to whether Feehan would get recruited at the DI level...go back & look - one of our frequent posters back in 2014 wanted to see him play at Bradley. But the general consensus was that he was a marginal DI possibility and that turned out to be true.

Once we got to the conference part of the season then you find that your opponents have scouted you well and have devised defenses that do a better job on scorers...

That's why Feehan was able to regularly put up 20-29 points in the non-conference part of the season but the instant he hit MVC play, he never came close again.
His scoring average against those team that likely didn't even know who he was suddenly dropped to less than half once he started to play MVC opponents.

[tornado]

Looks like NCAA will be voting on a new rule that will REQUIRE grad transfers to stay & get their grad degree or else...
the school will be DOCKED one scholarship...
This will prevent the sham transfers on the supposition of attending grad school but then the kids don't bother to attend classes (like Feehan)

So I guess you could call this the Shea Feehan Rule

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/sports/ncaa-final-four-graduate-transfers.html

[Da Coach]

So the NCAA is expecting schools to keep grad-transfers on scholarship for an extra year after they are done playing. That would tie up scholarships on kids who are done with their eligibility. This would make most schools reluctant to take grad-transfers, since not many schools will want to risk losing scholarships unless it involves an impact player.

[tornado]

I don't know if it will pass as stated but clearly some in DI want some controls over the player losses...
of the 353 DI schools, all but about 80 are smaller schools, most of whom are getting tired of having their best players picked off their roster..
One interview in that NY Times column was with a guy from South Dakota State - so schools like that are the most vulnerable...
they find & recruit kids, develop them, then lose them as grad transfers - just like Evansville did last year losing Ryan Taylor,
like South Dakota did losing Matt Mooney, and just like Bucknell just lost their best kid to grad transfer.
So there may be some sentiment among the smaller schools to put some kind of restrictions on the loss of their best & most senior players.