An Elliott Pitts update

Bruce Pascoe: "Been asked a bunch about Elliott Pitts, who missed his fifth straight game with an off-court issue that UA isn’t identifying. The process of elimination suggests a few things:

Now that fall semester is over and the issue isn’t resolved one way or another, that suggests academics are probably not involved. Besides, Pitts is known to be a good student and Miller has characterized it as a “personal issue.”

Pitts also been on the court before games in early warmups and has no sign of illness or injury.

And the fact that he’s been in town, sitting on the bench, cheering the Wildcats on, indicates he’s not inclined to transfer. If he was, he probably wouldn’t be in Tucson, especially after the semester ended last week (remember how fast Sidiki Johnson and Craig Victor left town in midseason?).

What's more, Pitts is getting good playing time (21.3 average minutes) and, really, transfers are almost always about PT.

Moreover, once a player steps foot on the court during his junior season, it is typically too late to transfer. Playing in any games during a season burns that entire season -- barring a waiver -- meaning Pitts would only have his senior year left to play elsewhere.

And even if he transferred now in order to be eligible next December, Pitts would only have two-thirds of a season left to play in his college career.

Bottom line: All indications are this is an off-court matter that could still take a while to resolve."