Hayden Humes lost his scholarship at Toledo through no fault of his own.
He carried a 3.43 grade-point average during his two years in the program and started 26 games for the Rockets, but then learned that his scholarship would not be renewed.
The reason? Toledo was docked three scholarships because of Academic Progress Rate penalties that left coach Tod Kowalczyk in a scholarship crunch. Kowalczyk had inherited the penalties from the previous staff and needed to bring in new recruits.
But there is good news for Humes in that the NCAA has granted him a legislative relief waiver that allows the 6-foot-8 forward to play immediately after transferring to Illinois-Chicago.
"I never planned on leaving Toledo, but when the APR ruling was revealed and I found out that my scholarship was one of the ones affected, I decided to transfer and hope that the NCAA viewed the situation in the same way that I did," Humes said in a statement. "The past few months at UIC have been unbelievable -- I'm around a great group of coaches and teammates, and I can't wait to contribute this season. I'm thrilled with the decision that the NCAA made, and would like to thank everyone that supported me during this process."
The NCAA did the right thing supporting a student-athlete who had been adversely affected for not doing anything wrong. The least it could do was prevent his basketball future from being further delayed by forcing him to sit out a year due to transfer rules.
As for Toledo, Kowalczyk couldn't have known it at the time, but there might have been room for Humes after all. Incoming recruit Justin Moss had his career ended by a heart condition.
Things don't always go as planned, but the NCAA made them a little bit easier on Humes as he heads elsewhere to resume his college career.