The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C. (via Mike Waters' Blog on Syracuse.com) announced today that Mike Jones, formerly known as the highly touted freshman at Syracuse University expected to do great things, has been dismissed from the University of South Carolina for academic reasons. You probably remember Jones' transferred to "the other USC" from Syracuse earlier in the season. Quite a turn in the story for South Carolina's Mr. Basketball 2005-06. Jones left Syracuse, citing home-sickness. But when he transferred to Carolina, coach Dave Odom said the university set certain academic criteria for Jones to hit, and he did not.
So what does Jones do now? Well could go to a junior college, a Division II or a Division III school, where he would have one year of eligibility before possibly returning to a Div. I school in his junior year. This might end up being a good move for him, as my best guess is that the spotlight of playing for a Division-1 program and attending a 10,000+ student institution may have overwhelmed him.
Hopefully, Jones gets his act together. He's got the skills to make it somewhere and get a good education in the process. It's easy for a guy like Jones to get lost in the system, question is does he have a good base supporting him? That might be the difference a couple years from now between his story being a feel-good one or a cautionary one.