Possibly, but the father had lung cancer when Smith decided to play ball in Virginia and in Iowa.
And I take it that you don't believe Smith's high talent level entered into this?
I did an exhaustive search for any examples of players who have gotten the NCAA to waive the one year sit-out penalty.
NOPE..allowing this kind of transfer is all but unheard-of......
I can find cases where the NCAA DENIED IT! even though it was for the same reasons.
BUT it has happened a few times when programs were placed on severe penalties (like at Baylor/Dave Bliss a few years ago) and the players were allowed to transfer without penalty.
And it happened a couple times to players who were displaced or affected by Hurricane Katrina....but those cases differ severely from this individual case.
(as do the recent few cases of graduate student who took advantage of a now rejected rule that allowed 5th year players to transfer without penalty, and when Birmingham Southern went from D-I to D-III their players were allowed to transfer to other D-I's with the penalty and only one did.)
I looked for similar examples as this where a star player wants to leave a program where the present coach has left...and found NO SUCH EXAMPLES, ever.
I challenge you to find such a case.......
There are a few cases where a player pled that he needed to be closer to home due to illness in the family, but in EVERY CASE I could find (and there were only a handful) it involved BCS schools, or it was complicated by something like the Katrina tragedy.
A Vandy to Purdue football transfer
http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070519/SPORTS020101/705190337/1046/SPORTS020101
And a case of a football player going from Colorado to Colorado State in which the writer also says:
"After a lengthy search, I could not find a case involving a football player in which it did happen"
http://calbears.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4191/is_20030817/ai_n10024267
(and they couldn't find a single basketball example except for all the way back to 2002, when there were five and those were the Baylor transfers.)
As "nice" as this might seem to some, it is a virtually unprecedented move, and allows one of the top players in the nation to go immediately to a team that already had Sweet Sixteen potential.
Here is the real reason for the transfer.......
"If Smith wins his NCAA appeal he could be the piece of the puzzle that elevates the Vols to unprecedented heights. Tennessee has never reached a Final Four. It???‚¬?„?s never been to the Elite Eight."
"Rick Stansbury, Mississippi State???‚¬?„?s veteran coach, believes Smith rockets Tennessee into a strong Final Four threat"
http://tennessee.scout.com/2/648437.html