Last night, the South Carolina Gamecocks men's basketball team beat the Manhattan Jaspers by the score of 63-57. It was a good win for USC but it was a win without one of their top players, LaShay Page.
The USC SID reported before the game that the senior guard, a post-graduate student, from Dillon, S.C., would not participate in the contest versus Manhattan due to an "academic issue." The first question that pops into the mind is, should this concern us?
Page was a transfered into the South Carolina program for a one year stint after a brief career at Southern Miss. Maybe this has to do with a missed study hall and it is just one game. Or worse, it has to do with the transfer process and will cause him to be out longer.
He averages 11.7 points per game and helps to bring a spark to the USC offense that they badly need. If this academic issue lingers, then this will hurt any remote chance that the Gamecocks had for a NIT berth or at the very least to be competitive in their SEC slant of games coming up.
Let's hope this was just a minor setback for Page and he serves his punishment (or the program's) and he gets back into the "garnet & black" hoops jersey real soon as the South Carolina Gamecocks need him on the court in 2012-2013.
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