The Kentucky Wildcats are still waiting for the NCAA to issue an eligibility ruling on Zvonimir Ivisic.
Somehow, this saga has been going on for three months with no end in sight, and John Calipari is fed up.
During his Monday call-in show, Calipari vented his frustration with how slow the NCAA has been in making a ruling on Big Z.
“I grabbed him (Ivisic) today, and I told him, ‘Look, man, I feel so bad.’ I said to him, ‘I’m not worried about my team. This is you as a person that you’re having to go through this,’” Calipari said. ”I don’t know what he’ll add to our team. He’s pretty good, but we’ve got good players.
“It’s not fair to him. It took a long time to get him admitted. Again, (he’s) a 3.2 (GPA) student, a smart kid, all the good stuff. And then it’s taking the NCAA even more time to look at the facts. There are European kids playing all around the country, but they’re playing, and he’s not?”
Taking it a step further, Calipari suggested it’s time for UK to be more aggressive.
“Hopefully, we hear something (soon). I just know that around the country, people are being very aggressive when it comes to different stuff with the NCAA. My hope is if this thing lingers too much longer, we become aggressive too.”
It’s unclear if the ‘we become aggressive too’ was meant more to be a message to the NCAA or a call to the higher-ups at UK to do more. After all, the UK admissions office nearly didn’t approve Ivisic to begin with, and Calipari voiced his frustrations about it on more than one occasion.
Whatever the case is, here’s to hoping the NCAA clears Big Z very soon.