Photo courtesy Quinnipiac Athletics
By: Morey Hershgordon
Giovanni McLean will no longer play college basketball at Quinnipiac University, despite the NCAA granting him a sixth year of eligibility.
On Tuesday May 17, 2016 Quinnipiac University’s Men’s Basketball official twitter account released a statement.
Head coach Tom Moore was unable to give an official comment.
Originally committed to Oklahoma University, the New York native chose the Hamden school in the spring of 2014 and enrolled in classes the following fall. After an investigation of Richard Fields, one of his former assistant coaches at Westchester Community College who forged transcripts and signatures to help his players compete at the Division I level, McLean was deemed ineligible. Fields was later fired.
After sitting out the 2014-15 season, McLean was expected to debut for the Bobcats in the annual Connecticut 6 Classic this past November. That was until he was suspended one game for playing in a non-sanctioned summer league basketball game.
McLean finally played in his first Division I basketball game, an 83-70 loss, on Nov. 18 at Vermont. The combo guard finished with 18 points on six-of-15 shooting, including four-of-eight from deep.
The rest of 2015-16 was an uphill battle. Tabbed as a prolific scorer, McLean was tasked to do much more than that. At times he showed glimpses of being an all-MAAC guard, like on Feb. 1st when he dropped a career-high 25 points calmly knocking down 8-of-10 free throws in a big road win against in-state rival Fairfield. On the other hand, McLean turned the ball over at least four times in twelve games. Quinnipiac was just 3-9 in those games.
Despite the rocky season, McLean played his final home game on Feb. 21, a loss to Manhattan College. In the post game press conference, when asked to describe his time at Quinnipiac in one word he said, “Amazing. It’s the best choice I ever made in my life.”
Quinnipiac concluded the year at 9-21 (6-14 MAAC) when it lost to No. 8 seed Rider in the opening round of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament. McLean finished the year playing in 29 games averaging 12.9 points, 3.3 assists, and 4.7 rebounds per contest.
He’ll have one year of eligibility remaining and can play immediately in the 2016-17 season.
