Mario Little Cleared To Play By Bill Self

This afternoon Bill Self announced that Mario Little would once again be eligible to play for the Kansas Jayhawk basketball team.  Little, as most will recall, has been suspended since December 16th following a misdemeanor arrest in Lawrence.  

"Mario has met the requirements off the court and has received a diversion agreement on the two misdemeanor battery charges," Self said. "He has not only met the requirements of the court but also the requirements of our basketball program. One of those stipulations is his receiving weekly counseling that will continue through the end of our basketball season.

"We as a program take the events of December 16th very seriously, Mario made mistakes and exercised poor judgment. We have let the legal process play out, and have been able to evaluate Mario in the last four weeks in a variety of ways, including counseling. We feel he should be allowed to rejoin our team for games."

I'm not a legal expert and I don't really want to judge a person based on things I don't know the full details on.  That said, I have no problem with the way this was handled by coach Self.  I do feel like the integrity of the athletic department at Kansas is of high importance and I'm glad that swift action was taken while the details and a resolution was sorted through. 

Now that those things have been taken care of and Little has reached that resolution within the legal system, the decision is coach Self's to make and he's never given reason to question his judgement in this area. Back to basketball for Little and now that ten man rotation is very realistic in my opinion.