On Tuesday night, the Syracuse University men's basketball team suffered an 88-68 loss against North Carolina State, dropping the Orange to 12-9 overall and 3-5 inside league play.

While the loss itself was the fourth in a row for Adrian Autry's team, one of the more interesting developments was what happened at the end of the game: Syracuse freshman Calvin Russell III entered a college basketball game for the first time, scoring three points in two minutes.

The decision to play Russell is a fascinating one because Russell will lose a year of basketball eligibility just for stepping on the floor. Let's examine some of the angles to this.

A standout athlete from Florida, Russell is one of the best recruits in Syracuse football history and he'll be an integral part of the SU football program immediately in 2026. He graduated high school early, enrolled in Syracuse for the second semester, and immediately joined the basketball team. He has planned on being a two-sport athlete all along.

Given that he *should* be a high school senior, why did Autry decide to play him and burn a year of eligibility in a blowout? There's a few possible reasons.

In football, a player can earn a redshirt if they appear in four or fewer games. Basketball doesn't have that rule. Russell will lose a year of eligibility. However, there are talks about changing the basketball rules. Perhaps players will get a fifth year of eligibility, or perhaps there will be some threshold, like football, that allows for redshirts to come into play even for players who appear in games.

Either way, maybe SU is confident in a rule change that will get Russell this year back, preserving four future seasons where he can play a bigger role.

If Russell pops off on the football field, as expected, then he may not make it to a senior basketball season, and there would be no need for a senior season of eligibility.

For instance, if Russell wants to leave after his junior year for the NFL Draft, he would be leaving some of his basketball seasons on the table. If he stays a full four years with the football program, he wouldn't need a theoretical senior hoops season either, as he'd depart after the football season to start preparing for NFL Draft.

To the above point: If Russell is so good in football, he may just drop basketball for the sake of focusing on the gridiron. 

While no one at Syracuse wants this, it's a reality of college sports. Russell might not make it all four years at SU, and if that's the case, then they don't need to worry about his future eligibility down the road.

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