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Bryce James isn't playing for Arizona in Final Four — here's why LeBron's son is on the bench
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- Bryce James isn't playing for Arizona in Final Four — here's why LeBron's son is on the bench
Bryce James isn't playing for Arizona in Final Four — here's why LeBron's son is on the bench originally appeared on The Sporting News . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here .
Bryce James has a chance to do something his father never did: win a college basketball national championship.
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LeBron , of course, has won pretty much everything else there is to win. But he never played college hoops, going straight from high school to the NBA. Bryce plays for the Arizona Wildcats, who are in the Final Four.
Arizona was a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament, and the Wildcats are hoping to end a long drought for West Coast teams, which haven't won the title since 1997.
If Bryce wins a national championship, though, it won't be because of what he did on the court.
Bryce isn't playing.
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Why isn't Bryce James playing in March Madness?
Bryce James is on the sideline in his sweatsuit because he is redshirting his freshman season.
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To redshirt in college basketball, a player cannot play a single second the entire season. If that is accomplished successfully, the year doesn't count against his college eligibility.
This was assumed to be the plan for most of the season, and it finally became publicly acknowledged in February.
Bryce wasn't ready to contribute to a team this good this early in his college basketball career. The hope is that a year of watching and learning helps him develop into a useful player down the road.
"The redshirting decision was just a long play, to give Bryce the most options in his career as his career unfolds," Tommy Lloyd told the Big 12 Network on Feb. 3. "I have real strong belief that Bryce will be a contributor at Arizona in the near future. He's really shown a lot of progress, not only learning our system but just physically maturing."
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Is Bryce James going to transfer?
That quote from Lloyd is certainly a positive one. It makes it seem like he has Bryce in his future plans at Arizona.
But could Bryce choose to transfer instead? Of course. That's the modern world of college hoops.
And if he wasn't ready to play at Arizona this year, is it a given he will be next year? The Wildcats' staff surely knows better than any of us do. Bryce's name will be one to watch whenever the season concludes.
In the meantime, the Wildcats would like to win a national championship.
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