The Verice Cloyd admissions saga seems to be over at last, following what looks like a happy ending for the prospect and the University of Alabama basketball program.
But perhaps it’s best that this basketball story wasn’t strictly a slam dunk.
That’s not to say that Cloyd, who was admitted to UA on Tuesday and now awaits only a final nod from the NCAA Clearinghouse before playing basketball, somehow deserved the long ordeal that accompanied his arrival in Tuscaloosa. Although there were literally hundreds of players affected by the NCAA’s high-profile scrutiny of “diploma mills," Cloyd -- largely because his name appeared in The New York Times in March -- was much more publicized than the others, including his own teammates at Genesis One Prep. His case played out on a very public stage.