Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Ari Stewart ruled academically ineligible at USC

Ari Stewart

usctrojans.com

Things were getting too good to be true for first year USC head coach Andy Enfield.

Pe’Shon Howard and D.J. Haley recently transferred from their schools on the East Coast back to their native state -- Howard from Maryland and Haley from Virginia Commonwealth -- and both will be eligible to play for the 2013-14 season, providing immediate help for a team that struggled on offense last year and lost their top two offensive threats in Jio Fontan and Eric Wise to graduation.

Unfortunately for Enfield, Ari Stewart will not be a part of the rebuilding effort that he has on his hands. Stewart has been ruled academically ineligible for the coming season, Galen Central first reported.

Stewart was a Top 50 recruit coming out of high school, according to Scout.com. He spent his first two seasons at Wake Forest, but transferred to USC following the 2010-11 season due to academic struggles. Wake Forest head coach Jeff Bzdelik told the Star News Online of Stewart’s struggles in the classroom:

Our players are going to be held accountable for doing the right thing. That means going to class and doing what’s expected. That’s all part of being a player. He’s got some academic work he needs to address.

Stewart’s academic issues have caught up to him once again. His eligibility for the coming season was very much up in the air over the summer as Stewart was actually ineligible, but he was attending summer school in an attempt to regain his eligibility.

Even though his basketball career is all but over, Stewart is reportedly enrolled in classes and began them on Monday as he looks to get back on track academically to earn his degree.

Stewart did not play a prominent role under last year’s initial coach Kevin O’Neil, but was more of a factor under interim coach Bob Cantu. Over a seven game stretch in the middle of the Pac-12 schedule, Stewart averaged 13.3 minutes and 4.4 points, but a broken left hand forced him to miss six of USC’s final eight games.

Follow @KLDoyle11