Gopher Basketball to Apply for ‘Play-Now’ Exception on Sophomore Pitt Transfer

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Happy Friday night fam! You finally made it to the weekend.

Unless you’re a weekend warrior.. If that’s the case, hopefully you had a good week… and I’m glad I’m not you.

There’s lots to talk about tonight and we’ll be touching on a lot of Vikings and Fantasy Football Sunday night when No Shirts, Just Skins makes its dramatic return! But, before we get there, let’s talk about a little Gopher Basketball news that dropped earlier today. With all of the Vikings’ Training Camp and Randy Moss HOF induction ceremonies taking place, things like this can fall through the cracks.

Luckily, you have me.

One thing is for sure. If this actually falls the way of the Gophers, it will DEFINITELY be big news:

For those of you who have had your head in the purple sand all summer while you waited for Vikings season to start, Carr transferred away from Pittsburgh this offseason when the Pitt coach, Kevin Stallings was fired. He then committed to the Gophers in May and it was rumored the Gophers may apply for the exemption, given Carr had just finished his Freshman year before Stallings was flushed down the steel toilets.

Marcus would be a HUGE addition to the Gopher lineup this season. In Marcus Fuller’s story from the tweet embedded above, he mentions the impact that Carr is already making on his teammates:

From reports on summer practice, it sounds like Carr has made an immediate impression as far as having a great attitude, strong work ethic and gets along well with his teammates. He’s not known as a three-point shooter, but he’s held his own in shooting contests with Michael Hurt, Gabe Kalscheur and Washington after practices.

As a Freshman last year in Pittsburgh, Carr got really big minutes and was able to stick out. His stat line is impressive:

With a backcourt that has left us all crossing our fingers as we enter 2018-19, Carr would allow fans to exhale slightly. With Nate Mason graduating, we are left with Isaiah Washington as the offensive engineer going forward, who needs to (and I expect him to) take a big step forward. Hopefully we’ll see a different player after a year of adjusting from the street ball style of New York to the much more polished and defensively disciplined style of the Big Ten. Luckily, Dupree McBrayer has a year left to help the adjustment process. Beyond that, the team will rely on Freshmen Gabe Kalscheur and Jarvis Omersa, along with Grad-Transfer Brock Stull.

Don’t get your hopes up either, landing the exception for Carr seems like a bit of a long shot, by the way it all sounds. However, it’s not like every coach around the country is applying for this exception for all of their transfer students. If it was a 0% chance, they wouldn’t be applying, right?

– That brings me to another topic that Fuller touched on in recent days. Richard Pitino still has one scholarship left for 2018 after Matz Stockman transferred a month ago. NOBODY really has any idea (including himself) on what he’ll do with it.

– Matthew Hurt Update: We also heard earlier this week from the Hurt family out of Rochester, MN, as we wait for Matthew (one of the highest rated high school basketball players to ever come out of Minnesota), to make his college decision. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Landing Matthew Hurt would be big enough to build a statue for Richard Pitino right now. This is a legitimate one-and-done who has the ability to change the entire landscape of the college he goes to. If he decides to make that his home University, then Pitino has already delivered on his coaching duties to a level that no coach has LEGALLY reached in this program’s history.

In other words, it would be a big deal.

Eric Strack
Minnesota Sports Fan (@RealMNSportsFan)

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