Haugh, not Sharp, to get final scholarship for 2016-17 season

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Maybe Haugh being a Senior? Which walk ons were awarded scholarships previously?
 

That seems kinda odd, though I don't know the details about the situation. I figured that Sharp would either receive a scholarship offer from Pitino or would transfer to another D1 school that offered him one.
 

How well off is Sharp's family compared to Haugh?
Without being in the room, we'll have no idea what went on for Pitino to make the decision he made.
 




Here is the press release:

Haugh Earns Scholarship for 2016-17



Minnesota head men’s basketball coach Richard Pitino announced Friday that rising senior Darin Haugh has been awarded a full scholarship for the 2016-17 academic year.


“We are extremely excited that Darin Haugh will receive a scholarship for the upcoming season,” Pitino said. “He has been the epitome of an outstanding student-athlete on and off the court the two years he has been here. He is hard-working, loyal and a great teammate.”


Haugh joined the Gophers prior to the 2014-15 season as a walk-on, following two seasons at Wisconsin-Platteville and Bethany Lutheran in his freshman and sophomore years, respectively. The Prior Lake, Minn., native sat out his junior year due to NCAA transfer rules and saw action in six games as a reserve this past season.


With the announcement, the Gophers will have the full complement of 13 scholarship players this season, along with sophomore walk-on Stephon Sharp and freshman walk-on Brady Rudrud in uniform for the Maroon and Gold.

Go Gophers!!
 


You don't have to take the scholarship back from haugh. You do from sharpe.
 




Winasota Gopher said:
You don't have to take the scholarship back from haugh. You do from sharpe.
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That makes sense. Haugh's scholarship is available next season. If you give Sharpe the scholarship, are you giving it to him for three seasons? Or are you giving it to him for one season and then retracting it?
 

Urbandale said:
That makes sense. Haugh's scholarship is available next season. If you give Sharpe the scholarship, are you giving it to him for three seasons? Or are you giving it to him for one season and then retracting it?
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It's always a 1 year deal.
 

The FB team has done the same thing - reward a hard-working senior walk-on with a scholarship. The big difference is 85 scholarships for FB and 13 for men's BB.

In the big picture, as long as they weren't going to sign another player for the upcoming season, it doesn't cost them anything to give Haugh a scholly - and it's a feel-good story for a program that badly needs a few feel-good stories.

As others have said, based on what I've seen, Sharp has a much higher chance of contributing to this year's team, so it's curious from that standpoint.

All I can do is speculate that, for whatever reasons, Pitino does not want to tie up a scholly on Sharp for 3 years - or be put in a situation where he has to take a scholly away next year to sign a "better" player.

It does point out the value of a D1 Scholarship, and the importance for the coach to manage the roster in order to give the team the highest chance of success. Like it or not, Pitino is under a lot of scrutiny, and he knows better than anyone (or he should), that every decision is going to be put under a microscope.
 





I like it ... Sharpe will have a chance when he is a senior to get one.
 

I agree mostly with Winasota Gopher, I think Pitino is thinking beyond this season with giving the scholarship to Haugh. Set a precedent that if you work hard as a walk on (and probably also help the team GPA) you will have the opportunity to be on scholarship as an upperclassmen if a scholarship is unexpectedly available (see Kendall Shell). It was a few years ago now, but some people were upset at Travis Busch's scholarship being "pulled" by Tubby when in reality he was a walk on who was given a scholarship and it was never implied it was a permanent action. Jamal Abu Shamala was another guy who was a walk on who Monson put on scholarship but made it clear it was not permanent (though I believe he ended up staying on scholarship), but that was also a situation that caused some people to be upset.

This seems like a uniquely Minnesota problem where we still have a large number of fans who are either ignorant to the realities of big time college sports or simply choose to ignore them. Marcus Fuller has been leading the charge to put Sharp on scholarship and talking about how well he played when forced in to action late last season. The reality is the Gophers got blown out by the likes of Rutgers and Illinois during that time period. Sharp played well when looked at through the prism of being a walk on playing a new position, but the bar would be much higher if he was a scholarship player. Iowa had a freshman walk on last year named Nicholas Baer that earned minutes on a team that had a winning record in the Big Ten and went to the NCAA tournament and he's now on scholarship. That's the type of season that gets you put on scholarship permanently (I know technically every scholarship is a one year deal) at a major university.
 

HOOP DREAMS said:
Dead wrong.
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Sharpe came in as a walk on there were no promises made to him, Buggs leaving freed up a scholly, it's easier to give it to a senior for the sake of recruiting. Grand scheme of things not sure why it's a big deal. Besides as someone pointed out earlier Sharpe is already taken care of
 

bemidjigopher said:
Sharpe came in as a walk on there were no promises made to him, Buggs leaving freed up a scholly, it's easier to give it to a senior for the sake of recruiting. Grand scheme of things not sure why it's a big deal. Besides as someone pointed out earlier Sharpe is already taken care of
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I don't think it's difficult at all.

I'm not ripping on Pitino's choice for the scholarship. But I'm sure the convo with a walk-on is essentially "hey, player B, a scholarship has opened up for this season, because of all of your hardwork, we would love to offer this scholarship to you for the upcoming season". I don't see how that could possibly rub the person the wrong way.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I don't think it's difficult at all.

I'm not ripping on Pitino's choice for the scholarship. But I'm sure the convo with a walk-on is essentially "hey, player B, a scholarship has opened up for this season, because of all of your hardwork, we would love to offer this scholarship to you for the upcoming season". I don't see how that could possibly rub the person the wrong way.
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I agree, it must be the off season if were concerned about sophomore walkons feeling getting hurt over a scholly being rewarded to a 5th year senior
 

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