According to several sources, including his high school coach, Dartmouth junior guard Alex Mitola will become a graduate transfer and play his final season at another school.
“Alex always wanted to see if he could play up at a little bit of a higher level,” Gill St. Bernard’s coach Mergin Sina told Jerry Carino. “Out of high school he didn’t have a chance to do it.”
The news represents a huge loss for Big Green coach Paul Cormier and the Dartmouth basketball program. Mitola averaged 12.4 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, good for seventh in scoring, first in free-throw percentage, 10th in assists, second in three-pointers made, second in assist/turnover ratio and second in minutes played.
“I’m disappointed and think he’s making a terrible mistake,” Paul Cormier said to the Valley News of Mitola. “He can’t get that (fourth year at Dartmouth) back. The decision that requires the most substance is staying here and following through with the teammates you came in with.”
The Valley News also reports that Mitola plans to play his final season of college eligibility with a higher-profile program and pursue a graduate business degree before playing professionally overseas.
“We’ve gone from nine victories to 12 to 14 since Alex has been here,” Cormier told the Valley News. “He could have left a real legacy. I hope this isn’t something he later regrets, because it’s not ending the way I think it should.”
“It was hard because I know the situation it puts them in, but I felt it was what was best for me and my career moving forwards,” Mitola said.
The Ivy League will miss Mitola’s potent long-range shooting, superior ballhandling and clutch play. Dartmouth would not have made its first postseason since 1959 this season without him. I discussed what I thought Mitola’s versatility meant to Dartmouth in an On the Vine in February, and One Bid Wonders correctly identified him as the “culture changer” in Hanover earlier this season.
2015 Outgoing Ivy Transfers
Denton Koon
Shonn Miller
Kenyatta Smith
Rafael Maia
Cam Crocker
Galal Cancer
Alex Mitola
I wonder if he is transferring because he is no longer eligible after he graduates. If that is the case the League must examine the basis of such a rule. Dartmouth ought not be punished because of the fact that its best player is such a highly motivated student.
Michael James, an IHO contributor, reports that Mitola could have remained at Dartmouth after graduation to play a 4th year. Apparently, Mitola looks at this opportunity as an escape. Too bad for the Big Green.
He could not have graduated and continued to play at Dartmouth per Ivy League rules. Don’t know how much that affected his decision though.
Mitola absolutely could have stayed with Dartmouth basketball one more year, as coach Paul Cormier’s comments to the Valley News (which I’ve added to this story) clearly reflect.
Is Cam Crocker definitely pursuing another year of basketball somewhere else? I saw he was on ESPN’S list but wasn’t sure he was actually doing anything.
Also, is Greg Louis going to do anything with his last year of eligibility?
Crocker is eligible for transfer. How fervently pursuing another year remains to be seen. Greg Louis will graduate in May and is not returning to Penn.
What is your source that Kenyatta Smith is transferring out of Harvard? Are you sure you don’t mean the Crimson’s Michael Hall? He is transferring from Harvard to Morehouse College and should be on your list.
Verbal Commits, for one: http://www.verbalcommits.com/schools/harvard But Smith’s been widely mentioned as having transferred. You are, of course, correct on Hall.
What is Kenyatta Smith’s standing academically and athletically? I know that he only appeared in one game his junior year, 2013-14, due to an injury to his foot against Dartmouth. Did he withdraw from Harvard for that year, leaving him a junior academically? Or did he stay in school, leaving him a senior academically, but a junior athletically? If the latter, then Ivy rules might force him to transfer to use his last season of eligibility as a graduate student elsewhere.
Smith never left school, so it would be the latter.
Mike Hall transferred last year and played this past season for Morehouse.
Right, I recall Harvard Athletics confirmed the transfer last September.