I think landing Pelle would be great. And it will make Lavin look good. We committed to him. He committed to us. He didn't qualify. We worked hard to get him qualified and it didn't work out. He decommitted, as Lavin might say a "prudent" decision given that he was clearing his head and getting back to the books. Meanwhile, STJ took a drubbing for having 3 players not qualify. Now one of them, Garrett, is with us. If Pelle comes through, it negates some of the negatives concerning him not qualifying in the first place. Same thing with Sampson, makes everybody look good that we came through the fire and got him onboard.
None of the 3 players who were deemed ineligible by the NCAA failed in their studies at STJ. They may have just gotten poor (or no) proper academic advisement on what they needed to qualify while they were jumping all over the place in high school, transferring like crazy as these top preps do these days.
It is a black eye for a school like Georgetown to have a student gain admission and then not qualify through the NCAA. The admissions standards are super high. At SJU they are not. It is part of our legacy to lift the students up, to serve the underserved, to focus on "outcomes". We take lots of chances on incoming students at SJU. The SJU students who are doing amazing things at the time of graduation these days in many cases were not stellar students coming out of high school. But they are transformed by the time they graduate.
I'd like to see Pelle here, but what I read on the internet makes me think he'll end up at UNLV. I think he was checking out Iowa State too, where Matt Abdelmassih is an assistant coach. Abdelmassih is a SJU grad and worked with the team as a student. I've heard he is a crackerjack recruiter these days.