After clearing Kentucky's Skal Labissiere, the NCAA has turned its attention to another highly touted big man arriving on campus for the upcoming basketball season.
Purdue head coach Matt Painter confirmed to Bleacher Report and ESPN incoming freshman power forward Caleb Swanigan has yet to be cleared to play this season.
"We're still working through the process," he said, declining any further comment.
As they did with Labissiere, the NCAA is looking into any impermissible activity that could have lead to his commitment. Swanigan initially committed to Michigan State, before changing his course for Purdue.
While this sort of change-of-heart happens regularly in college basketball recruiting, Swanigan's case is a bit more complicated. His legal father, Roosevelt Barnes, adopted Swanigan in May 2011. Swanigan was a six-foot-two, 320-pound eighth grader living in a homeless shelter.
However, Barnes is a Purdue alum and a certified sports agent. In a previously published feature from Bleacher Report on Swanigan's unlikely journey to a Power Five Division 1 basketball program, Barnes stated he adopted Swanigan for no other reason than he cared for the kid.
"I adopted Biggie because I loved him unconditionally," he said. "I wanted to show him that, no matter what happened, I wasn't going anywhere. I felt like it was my responsibility as a man to help this kid, because no one else was going to do it.
"All I wanted to do was love the kid and say, 'Hey, you've got a chance in life, man.'"
Unlike Labissiere's case, there does not appear to be any reports suggesting Swanigan's guardian was seeking to profit in some way. As they proved with Labissiere, the NCAA will not likely penalize Swanigan unless they find concrete evidence he consciously violated its policies.
