In a not so stunning move, the NCAA has denied Texas Tech forward, Joel Ntambwe’s reconsideration request to be eligible to play basketball this year. We last left this situation where Texas Tech was asking the NCAA to reconsider their initial decision by the NCAA to deny his eligibility. Yesterday, on his own radio show, Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt said that this reconsideration decision was denied.

There is one final step, which is to have a committee make a decision. Fox34’s Jon Sokoloff pulled the relevant audio from Hocutt’s radio show and I’ve transcribed it so that you can read it here for yourself.

The update is that we continue to be beyond frustrated with the process we’re having to go through with the NCAA. It’s frustrating beyond belief honestly, if we as a governance model and an NCAA association do not learn hot to be more efficient with our business, it’s not acceptable.

The NCAA staff had a chance to reconsider Joel’s situation, it did not fit nicely into a box for them, so they denied it.

We have one more step, that is to go to a committee, and that is being set up as we speak. That committee is made up of association members, a director of compliance, associate deputy athletic directors, or maybe an athletic director on that, maybe 4 to 5 administrators that will hear that case. We’ve asked for a verbal review, meaning that we will be on the call with them to be able to present our case, we are waiting on that call to be scheduled. We’ve asked for it to be expedited, unfortunately the NCAA does not move at the same speed as we do when it comes to organizing some of these things. My hope is that it is heard soon, and it is our last option for his particular situation.

Hocutt is obviousy frustrated at the process and for Hocutt to have issues with the NCAA, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him speak so harshly of the monolith that is the NCAA, has to mean that this has probably been one of the more frustrating situations he’s been involved in with a student-athlete.

“We continue to be beyond frustrated with the process we’re having to go through with the NCAA. The staff reconsidered Joel’s situation and they denied it but we have one more step.” – Kirby Hocutt

More from the #TexasTech AD’s radio show today regarding Ntambwe: #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/0e5BRoDBfc

— Jon Sokoloff (@JonSokoloff) January 22, 2020