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Cliff Alexander opens up on his suspension at Kansas

Cliff Alexander

AP Photo

AP

Former Kansas freshman Cliff Alexander opened up about his suspension from the Jayhawks late during his freshman year as he sat down with 120sports.com‘s Michael Kim.

The 6-foot-8 Alexander missed the team’s final eight games sitting out due to an NCAA investigation and he later declared for the 2015 NBA Draft after an up-and-down season. The former McDonald’s All-American averaged 7.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game as a freshman.

“My mom got tricked into something, she didn’t know what she was doing and we needed money at the time,” Alexander told Kim.

When Kim followed up and asked if Alexander would have returned to Kansas for his sophomore season had the investigation not been going on, Alexander said he would have considered returning to school.

“I was thinking about staying. I was thinking about staying,” Alexander said. “Then when the incident went down, I felt like I was going to be ineligible for my sophomore season, so I made the choice to leave.”

While there had been previous reports of impermissible benefits surrounding Alexander, it sounds like he’s coming clean with the past and trying to move on from it with regards to his professional career.

Yahoo originally reported that Latillia Alexander, Cliff’s mother, filed a Uniform Commercial Code in the state of Illinois to a finance company that specializes in loans to professional agents and athletes in August 2014. The loan is meant for guaranteed first and second round picks in the NFL and NBA Drafts and usually get taken out after a player turns pro but before the player’s first contract.