Iowa State Cyclones basketball: Bubu Palo considers hardship waiver if granted more eligibility

Bubu Palo hasn’t seen the floor this season after becoming eligible to play once he was granted a temporary stay at the disdain of Iowa State University.  Now he’s considering a hardship waiver if he can become eligible for an additional year.

Mar 15, 2012; Louisville, KY, USA; Iowa State Cyclones guard Bubu Palo (1) dribbles against Connecticut Huskies guard Ryan Boatright (11) during the second half in the second round of the 2012 NCAA men

From the Iowa State Daily:

"Palo said that he and ISU coach Fred Hoiberg will meet and have a discussion about whether or not Palo playing in Saturday’s game against Oklahoma State would harm his chances to be eligible for that waiver and sixth year at another school.“We’re going to keep some discussions about that just to maybe keep some options open for me for the future,” Palo said. “Possibly another school.”"

One part of this is similar to DeAndre Kane’s situation. He was able to graduate from Marshall and become immediately eligible to play for Iowa State. While Palo would be able to avoid any transfer rules with his graduation coming up in May, he has used up all of his eligibility.

Palo’s absence from the court could work in his favor to get another year of eligibility from the NCAA. According to the article from ISD, both Hoiberg and Palo may have had this under wraps until the backup guard mentioned it after practice today.

The NCAA approves around half of hardship waiver requests, and generally all of them are accepted once the student graduates. It’s very likely that Palo would get the waiver, but the additional year of eligibility after going through court battles?

That’s going to be a much harder sell. The NCAA may just look at the time Palo received to play this season and consider that a big enough window. It’s unfortunate for Palo that the Cyclones had enough players at the guard position that it wasn’t really necessary to throw him into the rotation.

I’d give Palo’s chances of scoring both the waiver and extra year of eligibility around a 50-50 shot. Because let’s be honest, the NCAA would have a hard enough time trying to pick a candy bar from a vending machine let alone deciding a case like this, and they could really go anywhere.