Remember DeAndre Thomas? Big forward for Indiana, the size of a mac truck, made former Michigan star Robert Traylor look like a peanut. Moved better than he looked, but still only averaged 3.6 points and 1.8 rebounds a contest.
Anyhow, he joined just about everyone at IU in fleeing the minute Tom Crean became coach. So where’s he gonna spend his senior year?
Robert Morris. No, not the school that won 26 games and the Northeast Conference regular season title last season. The school in Chicago. An NAIA school.
That’s the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. No worries: While we know the organization, we still had to google the acronym to make sure we got the full name right.
Thomas could’ve played division one hoops - there were rumors Detroit Mercy wanted him - but that would require him to miss a season based on transfer rules. Now he’ll play this year, but you have to wonder: Even on a bad division-1 squad like IU will be, wouldn’t playing in the Big Ten be better than this?
I’d hate to be accused of disparaging the good academic name of Robert Morris, but it’s quite possible that Deandre’s grades just weren’t good enough to get in anywhere else.
Everytime I see one of these guys landing somewhere else, I just shake my head.