Illini Lose Center Jones, Fifth Player to Leave Team
Center Rodney Jones failed to complete academic requirements this summer and became the fifth basketball player to leave the University of Illinois, the school said today.
Jones also faces charges of aggravated battery and mob action in the beating of a restaurant security guard.
“We’ll miss Rodney because he had a good initial year with us,” said Coach Lou Henson, whose team faces the possibility of the NCAA’s “death penalty” for alleged recruiting violations. “Our team will be an even greener team without him.”
The losses leave Henson with 10 scholarship athletes--only five of whom have any playing time with the Illini.
Jones, 23, was recruited from New Mexico Junior College but failed to meet academic standards and sat out the 1988-89 season.
A 6-foot-7 streak shooter with an unorthodox turn-around jumper, Jones started seven games last season, averaging 7.4 points a game.
Jones was indicted by a Champaign County grand jury last Thursday in the July 13 beating of a fast-food restaurant’s night security guard. The indictment alleged that Jones struck the guard with a nightstick and that he participated in the attack with two or more unknown individuals. Jones was the only person charged.
Police reports indicated that the guard, who was treated for bruises and cuts, was trying to break up an argument between two rival basketball teams that were in town for a sports festival.
The other lost players are:
- Marcus Liberty, who would have been a senior but decided to give up his final season at Illinois to play in the National Basketball Assn. and recently signed with the Denver Nuggets.
- Recruit Cuonzo Martin of East St. Louis, who initially said he would attend Illinois this year but changed his mind during the NCAA investigation of the university’s basketball recruiting.
- Ken Gibson, who transferred to the Air Force Academy.
- And recruit Jamie Brandon of Chicago, who had signed with Illinois, but failed to meet NCAA standards on an aptitude test and would have been ineligible his freshman year. He dropped out of a special summer program at Illinois and returned to Chicago.