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NCAA declares NC State’s Beverly eligible

NCAA Men's Final Four - Practice

ATLANTA, GA - APRIL 05: Fans stand next to a giant NCAA logo outside of the stadium on the practice day prior to the NCAA Men’s Final Four at the Georgia Dome on April 5, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

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The NCAA finally acceded to NC State, Braxton Beverly and public sentiment.

College basketball’s governing body reversed itself and has declared the freshman eligible to play this season, starting with the Wolfpack’s game Tuesday night against Bryant.

“Based on additional information, NCAA staff reconsidered and granted NC State’s transfer waiver request for Braxton Beverly, allowing him to compete immediately,” the NCAA announced via social media.

Whatever that new information is, it helped the NCAA arrive at a decision that nearly every single observer of the sport has called for in Beverly’s situation. His circumstances were reached via a winding road, but an ultimately relatively easy one to rule on.

Beverly committed to coach Thad Matta and Ohio State last year, and enrolled at the school early. The Buckeyes eventually moved to fire Matta, but not until June when Beverly had been already attending classes. Eventually, he decided that without Matta, Columbus was not where he wanted to be and headed to N.C. State. The NCAA originally ruled that because he had attended classes he would be treated as any other Division I transfer and subject to sitting out a year - even though he was only briefly at Ohio State and only looked to leave after Matta’s unorthodox firing in the middle of the summer.

“When (Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts) told me that my appeal had been denied earlier this week, I could tell how upset he was,” Beverly wrote on his personal blog. “I took it pretty hard. I was shocked. I think Coach was too. Some of my family might have taken it even harder, my uncle probably took it the hardest out of everybody.

“Through all of this, I am still happy with the decision to come to NC State. I think it was the best move for me to set me up to be the most successful man I can be.”

It may have taken the NCAA awhile to get to this decision - and that time cost Beverly two games to star N.C. State’s season - but ultimately, it’s hard to see how the final decision was anything but the correct one.