The University of North Carolina-Wilmington is not eligible for postseason action in the upcoming 2012-13 season due to low Academic Progress Rate scores. But First Team All-CAA forward, Keith Rendleman decided not to transfer to another school and play out his senior year for the Seahawks.
The APR tracks classroom performance of every Division I team. In a four-year span, the APR score of a school has to be at least 900, and 930 for a two-year span. UNCW missed those benchmarks and will join Towson as being ineligible for the CAA Tournament next March.
Rendleman and the coaching staff knew of this information for a while now and UNCW head coach, Buzz Peterson told the media a few months ago that the star forward would most likely redshirt the season to work on his game. However, Rendleman had other intentions. He met with Peterson in the summer and told him how much he wanted to play.
“He knew I wanted to play,” Rendleman told StarNewsOnline.com reporter, Brian Mull. ”And he wanted me out there. Even though we can’t go the postseason, we can still win a regular season conference championship.”
Coming off an outstanding 2011-12 season where he averaged a double-double, finished top 10 in the conference in scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage and blocked shots, Rendleman will be one of the best returning players in the CAA. He’s grabbed more than 700 rebounds in three seasons and there were reports that a few ACC teams wanted him. If Rendleman averages 9.2 rebounds per game this season, he will eclipse the UNCW all-time rebounding record.
“I felt like I have a pretty good thing here, rather than going somewhere else, and having to get treated differently,” Rendleman told Mull.
It says a lot about the man’s character to stay at a program that has finished no better than seventh in the CAA during his tenure at the school. Rendleman is a breath of fresh air in a generation full of collegiate nomads.
