Wichita State basketball claims Siena is preventing transfer Colby Rogers from playing
A roadblock in the transfer waiver process is allegedly preventing the NCAA approval Colby Rogers needs to play this season for the Wichita State men’s basketball team.
Rogers, a 6-foot-5 junior shooting guard, could be competing for a starting spot in the Shockers’ lineup this season. Instead, the sharpshooter has been forced to sit out Wichita State’s closed scrimmage and Wednesday’s exhibition game because the program claims Rogers’ former team, Siena, has not signed off on his waiver request.
The process dragged on through the offseason and is now perilously close to the start of the 2022-23 season — still without an answer. With less than a week before they tip off the season, the Shockers finally went public with their support of Rogers following a 83-52 win over Newman on Wednesday.
“I feel like as an institution (Siena) shouldn’t hold a player back like that,” WSU star point guard Craig Porter said. “He’s just doing what’s best for him and his future. I feel like they shouldn’t be able to make that decision for him. He’s moving up in life and I feel like they’re trying to take him down because he’s making that better step for himself.”
Following WSU’s claims, The Eagle reached out to the Siena men’s basketball program for a response. A member of the athletic department issued a department-wide statement on Thursday afternoon.
“We welcomed Colby to Siena last year through the NCAA transfer portal process,” Siena’s statement read. “Since it was his first transfer, Colby was able to play immediately, and he had a great year at Siena. When Colby decided to transfer for the second time, he was made aware of what entering the portal meant. Siena wanted Colby to return to Siena, so we don’t think that signing a non-participation waiver is the right thing to do. Should the NCAA determine that Colby could play right away, that would be wonderful for him and Siena would not take issue with that outcome, but that part of the process is Colby, Wichita State, and the NCAA’s responsibility, and not Siena’s.”
Why does Colby Rogers need a waiver to play at WSU?
The NCAA recently approved a rule that allows first-time transfers to play immediately at their new school, which is why newcomers like James Rojas (Alabama), Jaron Pierre Jr. (Southern Miss) and Quincy Ballard (Florida State) are able to play right away for the Shockers.
Rogers is a different case because he is not a graduate student and has already used his one-time free pass in the transfer portal to move from Cal Poly to Siena following the 2020-21 season. He averaged a team-high 14.1 points for Siena and earned all-conference honors in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
Because he transferred from a Div. I program to another Div. I program for a second time, Rogers required a transfer waiver — something he was well aware of when he decided to leave Siena.
Brown said on Wednesday he hopes to receive a ruling from the NCAA by the end of this week. Rogers declined an invitation from The Eagle to share his thoughts on Wednesday about how the situation has played out.
“I hope that I can play (this) year and they said they had a good feeling that I’ll be able to get a waiver,” Rogers said in May when he committed. “I told coach Brown that if I couldn’t get a waiver, I was prepared mentally to be able to sit out and still support the team and work on my craft. I still would want to help the team however I could. And when coach Brown told me he would take me regardless, waiver or no waiver, the decision was pretty much made. I appreciated that.”
What is the NCAA’s transfer waiver process?
When filing a waiver, a school must demonstrate with documentation that the student-athlete’s decision to transfer was linked to mitigating circumstances outside of their control.
From there, an NCAA staff member is assigned the case and reviews the submitted documentation with three key areas in mind:
Mitigation (examples include mental health, egregious behavior and run off)
Academic records
Previous school’s position
A ruling is typically made within 21 days after being submitted and schools are allowed to appeal the NCAA decision to the Div. I Committee for Legislative Relief within 30 calendar days.
The seven-member committee considers the following to determine if relief of the legislation is appropriate:
The purpose or intent of the legislation.
Whether there is a competitive or recruiting advantage gained through the waiver process.
The involvement and the overall well-being of the student-athlete.
Decisions made by the committee are final, binding and not subject to further review.
How rare is it for a former school to block a waiver?
While not unheard of, it is increasingly rare in today’s college basketball climate to hear of former schools blocking the way for players to play immediately at their new school.
Memphis guard Damaria Franklin, a second-time transfer from Illinois-Chicago, is going through a similar waiting process and believes his former school is blocking his path to playing this season.
But cases like Rogers’ and Franklin’s are the exception, so much so that CBS Sports national college basketball writer Jon Rothstein has poked fun at the process as a formality, in most cases, with this go-to tweet: “The NCAA continues to hand out waivers like they’re seedless watermelon at a 4th of July party.”
The approval rate is so high because it is typical for the former team’s coach to sign a run-off waiver, stating it was the program’s decision to “run off” the player, which practically guarantees their immediate eligibility at their next destination.
Even in instances where the coach wants the player to stay, it’s common practice to sign a run-off waiver. Former WSU coach Gregg Marshall most notably did this in 2018 when he let prized recruit Alex Lomax out of his signed letter of intent and signed the necessary paperwork to allow Lomax to transfer and play immediately at Memphis, which won him some goodwill from the national press in the process.
Current WSU coach Isaac Brown shares the same view as his predecessor.
“Every guy that’s ever left Wichita, we’ve given them the run-off waiver,” Brown said on Wednesday. “I don’t control the other coach, so hopefully (Rogers) can get the waiver from that school. Right now, that school hasn’t written a waiver for him. Now it has to go to the NCAA and hopefully it will pass.
“I’m in the business I want to help kids out. If you want to play at Wichita State, we want you to be eligible. If you don’t want to play at Wichita State, we’re going to write the waiver for you.”
Korey Torgerson, WSU’s top compliance officer, spent weeks handling Rogers’ case and personally crafting it before submitting to the NCAA. He has earned a reputation over his two decades-plus of experience for his diligence and attention to detail, two traits he leaned on during the process while collecting documentation and submitting the waiver.
But as WSU learned from the Teddy Allen debacle in 2018, sometimes it doesn’t matter how well-crafted the waiver is when the former school doesn’t give its blessing.
What kind of player would WSU be getting in Rogers?
For a program that has sorely lacked outside shooting in recent memory, Rogers could make an immediate impact for the Shockers.
He made 73 three-pointers (the same amount as Tyson Etienne last season) on 42.9% accuracy for Siena, solidifying his place as one of the nation’s top sharpshooters.
“He’s a dead-eye shooter,” WSU teammate Jaron Pierre Jr. said of Rogers. “If the play is going to him, there’s no doubt in my mind that shot is about to go in.”
While Rogers has proven to be an elite catch-and-shoot threat in offseason practices, he has also worked hard to expand his game in preparation for playing at a higher level in the American Athletic Conference.
He trained this summer to improve his accuracy shooting off the dribble and also going through repetitions of dribbling off ball screens and making the right read, whether it was to pull up for a jumper, make a bounce pass to a rolling big, sling it to the weak-side shooter in the corner or drive to the basket himself.
Although he has not played in WSU’s closed scrimmage or exhibition, it’s not hard to imagine Rogers slotting into the starting shooting guard role next to Porter if eligible this season.
“It would be like adding another sniper to our team,” Porter said. “But he’s not just one type of player. He’s not just a shooter. He can defend at a high level. He can play off the bounce. He can play the one if you need him to. He has that poise as a player. He’s a real flamethrower.”
