In the middle of last season, Michael Jordan’s oldest son Jeff Jordan, left the University of Central Florida, giving up on college basketball, and his hoop dreams forever. Now it may be MJ’s other more highly touted youngest son Marcus making a similar decision by choosing to leave the Central Florida program now that the NCAA has imposed sanctions on the Knights program, stemming from both football and basketball recruiting violations.
On July 31st, the NCAA imposed one-year postseason bans for men’s basketball and football. Those penalties were in addition to a $50,000 fine, adding two years to UCF’s previously proposed three years’ probation, reduction of basketball scholarships, the vacating of basketball victories and tighter limits of football recruiting visit days.
Basketball coach Donnie Jones served a three-game suspension last season and was given a three-year show-cause order beginning next season. Similar to the situation with Penn State football, any seniors on the basketball team were allowed to transfer to another university and be eligible immediately.
Of the four players eligible to move on, leading scorer and rebounder Keith Clanton, who was courted by Kentucky and Florida State, is the only returning senior while 2 other players have transferred, with Marcus Jordan leaving the program, but is continuing to take classes at the school.
It was speculated for some time, even before the imposed sanctions came down, that Jordan was leaving the program after his brother Jeff left in January and best friend AJ Rompza has graduated. Jordan also has been absent from all team practices this Summer. Marcus has left open the possibility of playing for another school for his senior campaign but has sighted his reason for leaving as “to focus on other business opportunities.”
Once a stand-out HS player at Chicago’s famed Whitney Young HS, he along with John Wall lit up the ’09 Jordan Brand Classic before taking his talents to the University of Central Florida the past 3 seasons. Although playing in the tremendous shadows of the G.O.A.T, Marcus made his own mark in the college ranks, regularly dunking it like his daddy and using his prolific offensive game to help UCF get off to a fast start in 2011 but ultimately never came close to being the player his father once was.
Marcus also made many headlines off the court as well, by trying his hand at the rap game in addition to getting in several scrapes with the law in his 3 years on campus. The things got a little weird as he tweeted an indecent proposal to a well known adult actress and was arrested following a drunken incident involving two women in Omaha, Nebraska earlier this year.
On the positive side, Marcus is quite the accomplished scorer, averaging 13.7 ppg last season. Brothers Marcus and Jeff have also started their own joint venture in the form of the website Heir Jordan, giving everyone a glimpse of their rather lavish lifestyles. Many believe that Marcus has left basketball to focus on the website and other business ventures that may jeopardize his NCAA eligibility.
Let’s hope we haven’t seen the last of Marcus Jordan on the hardwood……
Check out Marcus imitating one of MJ’s famous moves in a game vs Florida:
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen has also provided content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, Cleveland.com, CSN Philly.com, Buckets Magazine, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
