Alabama guard Ben Eblen to skip senior season

[Darrell KSR]

Not a huge loss, but it does get Alabama down to 10 scholarship players for the upcoming season.

[suncat05]

Yeah, and they're going to have their hands full with the additional games on tap with the additions in aTm & Mizzou, and with the new schedule for the entire SEC. Having a short bench in the SEC is not a good thing.

[Krank]

Not a huge loss, but it does get Alabama down to 10 scholarship players for the upcoming season.

What does that mean, exactly, Darrell?

"Normally" that would sound like he is "jumping" to the NBA, but the draft is over, obviously. So is he eying the NBADL, international ball, or simply disinterested in finishing at Bama and/or transferring?

Just curious.

[Darrell KSR]

Disinterested. It's a little like Jared Carter passing on the medical redshirt he could've had at Kentucky.

Not a huge loss, although they lose a little depth.

As I have aged, and had kids play at certain levels of sports, and as I have had the privilege of coaching young men and women in youth sports, I can appreciate his mentality if you don't just love what you're doing. I have coached kids that were college-level athletes in certain sports. On one of them, in volleyball, her Mom and Dad asked me if she could play college ball.

I told them both that yes, she could, but that it was my amateur opinion it would be at a lower division school. Volleyball scholarships are plentiful, by the way. Schools at every level, even community college, have scholarships for volleyball.

But this young lady was not only a talented athlete, but a smart and hard-working girl who had some ideas of where she might want to go to college. I asked them--do you want (her) to go to Auburn or Tulane, where she wants to attend school, or University of Northern Alabama? Or Jacksonville State? And will she want to work for her scholarship approximately 30 hours a week, considering conditioning, training, practicing, games, and travel?

Does she love volleyball so much she's willing to engage in a significant part-time job, almost full-time--practicing volleyball--and go to a small school that's not her 1st, 2nd, 3rd, whatever choice for school?

She's at Auburn, a junior now, and going to graduate in a medical-related field, and probably go on to medical school afterward. She has a boyfriend, and has enjoyed an active social life, involved in the Auburn community. And still enjoys sports on the intramural side.

Now, for everybody that is different. For me, I'd probably have gone to the smaller school to play basketball or baseball, if I was talented enough, because I loved the sport that deeply.

But for her? She didn't feel it with every ounce of her being.

I don't know Ben Eblen. He played a decent amount of minutes, almost double digits per game, as a defensive specialist, rarely scoring. Signed by Coach Grant. But he's on track to graduate in December with a major in consumer affairs, and says he is ready to get on with the next part of his life. I like that decision. I hope he is very successful in that next part of his life, and I bet he will be.