Edward Rudman – Sports Writer
The NCAA has given its winter athletes an extra year of eligibility due to the pandemic and the effects it has had on athletics.
With this additional year of eligibility, seniors on all Southern athletics teams will have to make a decision on whether or not they want to come back for the extra year.
“This has been weighing heavy on me for a while because I have been thinking about it,” said guard on the men’s basketball team Isaiah Boissard. “For me, I feel like I have a much different situation than most seniors because I already did a redshirt year so I’m older than a lot of guys. I’m at the point where I really want to stay another year but I’m still not sure.”
Boissard finds himself in an interesting situation where he must decide whether or not to decline the opportunity to play an extra year at the university. His decision carries weight, as his goal is to play professionally oversees in Europe after his college career is over, something he would push back a year if he decides to stay.
Even though he’d be pushing back his dream another year, Boissard said that there are positives for doing so.
“It wouldn’t hurt me in anyway, there’s a lot of upside to it. Being here on scholarship and getting a free education, I would be able to start my masters like debt free. I’d have more time to work on my game too and continue to improve and get better,” said Boissard.
Not only is Boissard considering the option of staying another year, but so is his teammate, guard C.J. Seaforth. Seaforth also is weighing in on his options and has aspirations to play professionally overseas.
“As a senior, so if I graduate and we don’t have a season and we have a whole other year, I can just straight focus on basketball and not have to be taking that many classes,” said Seaforth. “It would be much easier because I could just focus on basketball. There’s a possibility that it happens and that it doesn’t, but we’ll see and I’m going to continue to stay positive about it.”
Boissard and Seaforth staying another year is dependent on whether or not the team will be able to have a season this winter or if the season is drastically shorter and the pair won’t have nearly as much total playing time as compared to a regular season.
If this were to happen, both of the players said they would be much more inclined to coming to the decision of opting in to one final year as an owl.
Boissard said, “At first, I thought there was no way I’d consider coming back to play for another year because I want to get to the next level and If we play, If we don’t play, like I’m still going to try and go overseas. There’s no question about it but I mean, thinking about it and really weighing my options, I’ve been kind of changing my mind back and forth but it’s still up in the air at this moment of what I really want to do.”
Photo credit: www.southernctowls.com
