What's the Fuss?

Sitting in the stands behind the Chipola bench Tuesday night was a familiar face to Indians fans. His knees stretched past the end seat he was occupying with a female friend to his left.

It wasn’t quite where Jamarcus Ellis is used to sitting in a gym. Especially this time of year.

When he was introduced to the crowd in the second half of Chipola’s blowout win over Gulf Coast, the public address announcer ran through Ellis’ impressive junior college resume: NJCAA player of the year, All-American, All-State, All-Conference.

But Chipola left out a very important piece of information.

Ellis isn’t playing college basketball anymore. This was supposed to be his senior year at Indiana. But after Kelvin Sampson resigned, Ellis stopped going to class — which has been rumored to happen all season — supposedly took drugs and boycotted Indiana’s then-interim coach Dan Dakich’s first practice. He was suspended for a few games and eventually kicked off the Hoosiers by new coach Tom Crean.

Ellis’s next stop was rumored to be Northern Kentucky, but he ended up at Oklahoma City University, a NAIA school. He was the third leading scorer, averaging 14 points per game but was ruled academically ineligible before the second semester.

Chipola didn’t mention that either Tuesday night.

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