ESPN Men's Basketball

1. UCLA made it official with a press release on Thursday that former UTEP signee Isaac Hamilton is on scholarship and enrolled for fall classes. But the release wasn't clear about if he was going to play this season. There was a reason for that omission. According to multiple sources, UCLA has moved on a waiver for Hamilton to play this season. The Miners didn't release Hamilton from his National Letter of Intent and his appeal to the NLI was denied. UCLA is still holding out hope Hamilton could be cleared. The 6-foot-5 Hamilton is prepared to sit and the stated purpose of leaving UTEP for UCLA was to be close to his ailing grandmother. UCLA coach Steve Alford said the versatile guard would fit in well with the Bruins. He would. UCLA needs another potential scorer and someone with length on the perimeter. Hamilton averaged 23.5 points last season for St. John Bosco High in Bellflower, Calif. If Hamilton were to get eligible, then the Bruins would add depth in October to a position that desperately needs it.

2. Memphis doesn't open the season until Nov. 14, which means the Tigers can't start practicing Friday like many of the schools that open the season Nov. 8. That's fine with coach Josh Pastner. He wants to manage the preseason grind while pushing his guys, but knows he needs to preserve them some for later in the year. He said the Tigers will start practicing Oct. 3 and within the first week he will give the Tigers a three-day weekend off. He said he remembered his former coach, Arizona's Lute Olson, building in a three-day break for the Wildcats to avoid preseason burnout. The Tigers will have a veteran team entering the American Conference, especially on the perimeter, and the maturity with the team should lend itself well to handling a spread out practice schedule early in the preseason.

3. Credit new Rutgers coach Eddie Jordan for his patience. He didn't overreact to the potential thin roster when he took over. He collected some transfers, but all with a story to tell, and waited out the waiver process. And it worked. Rutgers found out Thursday Pitt transfer J.J. Moore was eligible immediately. That came on the heels of Iowa State transfer Kerwin Okoro getting his waiver. Jerome Seagears was allowed to come back to Rutgers after a brief spring stint at Auburn without any penalty. The Scarlet Knights now have the depth to be competitive and an intriguing team in the American Conference before moving to the Big Ten.

When a coach loses his job the way Mike Rice lost his job at Rutgers last spring — when video of insane practice abuses becomes a mainstream living-room talking point that furrows brows on the "Today Show" and raises cackles on "Saturday Night Live" — you do not expect the recovery to be quick.

Usually, Rice-level disasters are attended by nuclear fallout. Players flee the scene. Recruiting connections dry up. It takes years to restore a program's good name, to prove to parents that their kids are in good hands.

Considering Rutgers is not exactly a paragon of historical basketball success — and considering the fact that Rice's motivational tactics had yet to yield their first .500 season at the school — well, the calculus should be simple. Rutgers should be awful in 2013-14, and not much better beyond it.

Not so much, actually. The Scarlet Knights might not contend for a national title in 2013-14, but they are looking shockingly competitive. And it's all thanks to transfers.

Yes, transfers, specifically the legislative relief waiver some transfers can receive after appealing the NCAA and proving their move was due to financial hardship or family illness. That's how J.J. Moore, a junior Pittsburgh wing who played good, efficient basketball in just under 20 minutes per game for Jamie Dixon last season, became eligible for the 2013-14 season, as Rutgers announced Monday. The Long Island native transferred to Rutgers to be closer to his family, specifically his daughter and his ailing grandfather, and will be allowed to play right away this season.

Just a few weeks ago, that same mechanism — the legislative relief waiver — appeared to be working against the Scarlet Knights in arguably unfair ways. Rutgers fans, and frankly the entire college hoops world, were puzzled (which is putting it politely): Just months after Rutgers' players began to stream out of the post-Rice morass, receiving waivers along the way, Iowa State transfer Kerwin Okoro, whose father and brother passed away in New York last winter, was denied his claim. The NCAA's famed inconsistency seemed to be at work. The system appeared to be broken. That's what I was writing about, anyway, but Rutgers had more immediate concerns.

And then, just like that, the Okoro insanity quietly lifted. Moore followed. Now Rutgers' lineup will feature Myles Mack and Jerome Seagears, products of Rice's touted 2011 recruiting class, in the backcourt, with Moore on the wing and senior Wally Judge and sophomore Kadeem Jack in the frontcourt.

That is not a bad lineup. Is it good enough to compete with Louisville for the inaugural American Conference crown? No. Is it good enough to make the NCAA tournament? Possibly, though I tend to doubt it. But it is good enough to avoid the archetypal post-scandal season — single-digit wins, depressed fans who resign themselves to cheering for floor burns, court-storms after otherwise mediocre conference wins. Nobody wants that, and Rutgers is likely to avoid it. Meanwhile, Jordan's hands aren't tied by sanctions or lost scholarships. The uniqueness of Rice's firing, as crazy as it was, doesn't come with the usual tangible downsides.

The lesson, as always: The legislative relief waiver giveth and the legislative relief waiver taketh away. Rutgers finally got on the right side of that equation this week.

1. The NCAA has lacked consistency on granting waivers, whether for an ill relative, in the wake of a coaching firing, following an NCAA violation or any other issue. But the national office cannot, rationally, be inconsistent on waivers when it deals with the same case. If a former Rutgers player is eligible immediately at a new school (Mike Poole at Iona and Vincent Garrett at Green Bay) because he fled the reign of former coach Mike Rice, then a new player (Kerwin Okoro or J.J. Moore) should be granted the same treatment and be allowed to play at Rutgers immediately. Okoro's case, involving the loss of his brother and father, has been well documented -- he clearly has a sympathetic reason to be granted a waiver. But there is a fairness issue for Rutgers that should come into play if departed players are getting a better deal. Two more -- Derrick Randall at Pitt and Eli Carter at Florida -- may also get immediate eligibility. The only break the Scarlet Knights got was when Jerome Seagears was not penalized after he came back to Rutgers from Auburn two months after announcing he would transfer. New Rutgers coach Eddie Jordan said Wednesday there is another appeal coming for Okoro, with a different set of eyes and ears to evaluate the grievances. He said he's hopeful there will be a sensible conclusion.

2. Connecticut announced its schedule but not locations for all home games. That's because the Huskies still don't have a deal with their Hartford home, the XL Center. But, UConn athletic director Warde Manuel said, "because of timing of transition of management of XL, we are finalizing terms for this year and we will talk long-term arrangement in the near future. We will continue to play games at XL.'' The Huskies have a strong home schedule. UConn hosts headline teams Florida (Dec. 2), Stanford (Dec. 18), Harvard (Jan. 8), Louisville (Jan. 18), Temple (Jan. 21), Memphis (Feb. 15) and Cincinnati (March 1). The only home game on this list that has a designated home court is the Louisville game, at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, because it has been tabbed for ESPN's "College GameDay" and the Saturday prime-time slot.

3. With teams returning from their foreign excursions, follow-up reports are trickling in. Vanderbilt, during its time in Greece and Italy, found out just how much it will rely on guard Dai-Jon Parker; the Commodores were also able to reinforce a pre-trip theory that Tulsa transfer Eric McClellan will be the primary point guard. The staff was also high on the impact of 6-foot-10 center Damian Jones and expects him to be one of the better first-year posts in the SEC (he'll need to be, with players like Kentucky's Julius Randle coming into the league). There is now a chance James Siakam can play power forward, allowing Rod Odom to play his more natural small forward. The hope is that Odom can take care of mismatches at power forward.; Siakam will need to be the glue guy, and can provide the necessary energy. The Commodores have only nine players on scholarship, so this trip was a must to create bonds and give them a head start on what could be a challenging season. Expectations are low, giving Vandy and coach Kevin Stallings plenty of head room to be a surprise in what is a wide-open SEC beyond Kentucky and Florida.