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Penn State announced this evening that Jordan Dickerson, the 7-foot transfer from SMU, has been granted immediate eligibility by the NCAA. The sophomore will be able to suit up for the Nittany Lions tomorrow against Mount St. Mary's and for the rest of the season. He will have two more years to play after the 2014 campaign.
The program submitted a Legislative Relief Waiver request to the NCAA in hopes they would waive the mandatory requirement for all transfers to sit out a year in academic residence. Their efforts proved worthy as the NCAA approved the request. The circumstances surrounding the validity of Penn State's request for Dickerson are not immediately known. Penn State is 250 miles away from his Brooklyn home, so to be clear, this was not a hardship waiver based off the health of a sick family member.
"We are excited the NCAA has approved the waiver for Jordan," Patrick Chambers said in the release. "He has worked hard to develop during his six months with the program and we look forward to working him into our lineup and taking advantage of his presence in the post."
Dickerson immediately adds a valuable body with tremendous size to a frontcourt sorely lacking in both. He was a non-factor for Larry Brown's SMU Mustangs last year as a freshmen, seeing limited action in 26 games. He averaged 0.5 PPG and 0.9 RPG in just 3.5 minutes.
It's hard to place lofty expectations on the still-raw sophomore, but look for Chambers to ease the big man into the rotation, starting tomorrow against the Mount. Regardless of how you look at it, just having another big body to offer five fouls is a win right now for this team.
