GrizWhiz said:
Steward was a 2 star recruit coming out of high school.
I could not find much on Wood.
Stewart went to a prep school I beleive out of high school and then to Casper. last year after his freshman year he was eligible to sign with with a D-1 school but went back to Casper for his Junior year. He was getting some recruiting interest from Utah State last year. Montana (and Montana State) has been recruiting him off and on since he was in high school. The coaches know him well.
About Thurman Woods, He did spend most of the summer in Missoula working out with the the Griz, but there always has been some type of academic issue hanging over his head. When he signed with the griz back in the fall 2008 I know at that time he had not received a passing score in the ACT/SAT. This is not uncommon though as a lot of recruits signed in the fall either have not taken or still need to improve their scores. Woods was also ruled ineligible by the California high school Association (what ever it is called) to play last year because they ruled he was a 5th year senior. The NCAA has also adopted in the last few years more restrictive rules concerning 5th year seniors. So there always have been some questions.
Now jump a head to this fall just before classes were to start. Woods still had not been cleared by the NCAA Clearing house. This tells me that it was not a SAT/ACT problem but possibly a transcript problem. It tells me that the NCAA needed to review his credits in core cataroies, or possibly look at 5th year regualtions, something that took interpretations.
This is the problem that was presented to Woods in the day's before classes start. The NCAA clearing house still had not ruled on his eligibility to play D-1 ball. If he were show up for a class at UM he would be locked into UM. If the ruling were to go against him he could lose his athletic scholarship (although this is not 100%) and be forced to sit out of basketball for a year, and still having to transfer to a JC to get his D-1 elligbality. If he transfered to a JC he could play this year if the NCAA ruled eventually in his favor he could bounce back to UM (or any other school) for his sophomore year. If the did not then he could bounce back after his second year, not ideal but doable.
Now I understand that the the coaches thought that the NCAA would rule in his favor and encouraged him to stay put, but there are plenty of examples this year of coaches who were sure their recruits would be cleared that were not (just ask Brad Huse about Frenchman Marco Bougaurt). I am told that for what ever reason Woods was not approved by the NCAA Clearing house in late October. Since then he has been classified as a non-qualifier by the NCAA and as such must complete his JC Associate Degree (2 year) before being eligible to play D-1.
Again, this is all rumor, and i am not 100% about all my info but thsi is how I understand Woods situation. I have also been told that the Griz staff have been in close contact and are still recruiting Woods. They would like to get him back and Woods knows this but they have to wait.
As a little side note, one of the things that made me hold back on this post was to make sure that "Jordan Wood" was really not "Thurman Woods". The person who gave me the names assumed I knew who the players were and the schools they attended. I knew of Stewart, but had never heard of Jordan Woods.
