Mike Glover hasn’t played an organized basketball game since early 2007.
So you’ll forgive him if he’s a little excited, and a little nervous, about his team’s upcoming scrimmages Oct. 10.
That’s when Glover and his teammates from the College of Eastern Utah will meet Western Wyoming Community College and an all-star team in two games at the University of Utah.
“In 10 days is my first college scrimmage game so I’m pretty excited bout that,” Glover said by phone from Price, Utah, where he is in his second year at Eastern Utah.
Glover, the younger brother of former St. John’s standout Anthony Glover, committed to St. Francis of New York after visiting the school this past weekend. Assuming he graduates from Eastern Utah, he will join that team in 2010.
“I just wanted to come back home,” said the 6-foot-6, 210-pound Glover, a Bronx native. “I figured it was time. I like the coaches. My close friends made it very comfortable to come back to St. Francis.”
Of course, St. Francis wasn’t the original plan.
Coming out of high school, Glover initally committed to Seton Hall and arrived on campus in the summer of 2007 as head coach Bobby Gonzalez’s most prized recruit.
But more than a year later, ensnared in an NCAA investigation into his academic record, Glover still hadn’t played a single game for the Pirates.
Glover ultimately argued in a 2008 lawsuit against the NCAA and the Big East that the NCAA never gave a reason for invalidating his entire senior year transcript from American Christian Academy in Pennsylvania.
The NCAA argued that the Rhode Island federal court system had no jurisdiction over the case, and the Big East argued that it didn’t belong in the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres dismissed both defendants from the lawsuit after hearing arguments.
Glover finally left Seton Hall in the fall of 2008.
“Bobby had me as his top recruit of 2007. How your top recruit doesn’t get cleared, I don’t think that answer will ever be solved,” Glover said.
He added: “It was pretty rough. I’m not going to sit up here and say it wasn’t.”
Glover first landed at ASA College in Brooklyn, but ultimately wound up at Eastern Utah. He sat out last year and is now finally ready to play.
“He’s been doing well,” Eastern Utah coach Chris Craig said. “He’s going to graduate on time. He’s going to class. He’s working hard. He’s been out of it for two years. He’s still got a ways to go.”
Glover said he’s been running and training to keep in shape after not having played in two-and-half-years.
“Basically just running, conditioning, running sprints, weightlifting,” he said. “The system I’m in here in Eastern Utah, he loves his team to run. I’m running every day. You have no other choice but to get in shape.”
Craig said Glover had interest from Kansas State, Memphis and Arizona, but wanted to return home, in part because he has a nine-month-old son, Michael Glover Jr., in New York.
“At the time [he came here] he wanted] to get away from home,” Craig said. “Now that he’s here, he wants to be in the city.”
Craig added that Glover has the potential to be an all-league player next year at St. Francis.
There, Glover will join another former Seton Hall big man, 6-11 Mike Davis, who transferred after last season.
“We’re real close,” Glover said. “He’s there now. When I went on my visits, we sat down and spoke for a few mintues after the open runs.”
And now that Mike Glover is finally headed home, what’s his message to all the Seton Hall fans who waited so patiently for a basketball debut that never came?
“I appreciate everybody who tried to help out with the Seton Hall situation,” Glover said. “This is not the last you’re going to hear from me. This is the beginning. Just be on the lookout for me.”
