Honor Huff admitted he “almost cried” when the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball team opened lastseason at College of Charleston.
Huff had followed Dan Earl from Virginia Military Institute when the latter became the new UTC coach in April of 2022, continuing to put the faith in the only person to offer the 5-foot-10 Bronx, New York native a scholarship coming out of high school. Huff had taken advantage of the VMI opportunity, earning All-Southern Conference freshman honors in the pair’s lone season together in Lexington, Virginia.
Transferring is no big deal anymore. The NCAA has opened the door for players to transfer once without penalty, making them immediately eligible. That allows a player to leave for whatever reason they may choose, and it also allows coaches to push players out of a program if they believe it’s not a good fit.
But the SoCon remains stuck in a bygone era and has refused to adopt the new rules, meaning Huff was one of — if not the only — healthy players in the country ruled ineligible to play. To make matters worse, a national outlet picked up the story, with some quotes from former SoCon commissioner Jim Schaus suggesting there may be a vote within the league to change the rule. That vote never formally materialized, but rumors like that had given him hope.
So he sat out last year. He got better. He got quicker, he got stronger. But that didn’t make sitting out easier, so he leaned on Earl and his father Carlton, who played at Long Island University.