grant forfeits

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SoCalHoops High School News

Grant Forfeits Games. . . But How Many?
No One Seems Sure--(Jan. 19, 2000)

Grant High School in Van Nuys, which for the past two years had the services of Gilbert Arenas, now lighting it up at Arizona (and a potential Pac-10 FOY candidate), had been advised earlier last week that one of the Lancers' current players, Dwayne Anderson (6'-1" Jr. G) had been ruled ineligible by the City Section because he was in violation of CIF State Bylaw 214 (transfer eligibility) which requires a student to reside with a legal guardian. Anderson had originally lived in Los Angeles two years ago, and attended Grant as a freshman. Last year he moved to Tennessee, but this summer moved back to the area, but it seems he did so without his legal guardian.

Earlier this month, when the violation had been discovered, the City Section advised Grant coach Howie Levine that the Lancers, off to a successful one of their most successful starts (even without Arenas), would have to forfeit the games in which Anderson participated. Anderson was also advised that he was ineligible. Grant filed an appeal, and yesterday the City Section Rules Committee issued it's decision.

Of course, we don't have a copy of that decision; it's not the kind of thing that the City Section distributes, and it's not on their own website either. So we have to rely on the newspapers for the story.

Both the LA Times and the Daily News agree on this: Anderson was granted a waiver by the Rules Committee and is now immeidately eligible to play.

What the two papers don't agree on is how many games Grant had to forfeit as a result of the use of an inelgible player. The Daily News says the number is 15. The LA Times says the number is 12.

In this case, we're going to go with the LA Times' number. It seems to be more reliable. Why? Well, most people probably won't care about this, but in today's LA Times Valley Edition, the complete stats and league records are also printed, and at least the Times cared enough to adjust the records of each and every other team which was also affected by the decision, including Grant's. The Lancers, with 12 forfeit losses, are now just 2-15 on the season.

The good news for Grant is that this probably shouldn't matter much, because in City Section League play (which is what counts for the playoffs), Grant is in sole possession of first place in the Sunset Six League, at 2-0, ahead of everyone else (North Hollywood, Canoga Park, Hollywood and Verdugo Hills) who all are at 1-1; only Poly is winless at 0-2.

Oh, and the lack of an overall winning record also hasn't seemed to bother the pollsters from the Times, as Grant, with an overall record of 2-15 is now ranked as the region's No. 10 team in the LA Times' Boy's Basketball Top 10, evidently displacing North Hollywood, which has dropped out of the top 10 ranking. Others include No. 1 Simi, No. 2 Taft (3 last week), No. 3 Harvard-Westlake (4 last week), No. 4 Oxnard (5 last week), No. 5 Littlerock (6 last week), No. 6 Chaminade (No. 2 last week), No. 7 Ventura (unchanged), and three new entries in addition to Grant, all unranked last week: No. 8 Notre Dame, No. 9. Crescenta Valley, and No. 10 Grant.