UC Irvine Loses Top Recruit

Kevin Simmons, UC Irvine’s top basketball recruit, has enrolled in a prep school and will not attend Irvine this fall, said Petrina Long, Irvine’s senior women’s administrator.

Simmons, a 6-foot-8 forward from Brooklyn (N.Y.) Tilden High, said in August that he scored a 790 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test this summer. He failed in his first two attempts to reach the minimum score of 700 required by the NCAA for freshman eligibility.

Long, who’s in charge of academic advising for the basketball team, said the university admissions office has not received verification of Simmons’ transcripts and New York state aptitude exams. New York requires high school students to pass basic skills tests in subjects such as history and English before graduating and moving on to college.

“We have no idea if he has passed his tests,” Long said. “Kevin is an applicant here, and we never received his final high school transcripts or test scores.

“Because we have no official records of him, he’s not a complete applicant.”

Long said Irvine has no deadline for the transcripts to be submitted, but added that it was “awfully late” and Simmons already had enrolled in the prep school.

Simmons signed with Irvine last spring, but he would be free to sign with any university after attending prep school. Letters of intent are binding only if the athlete is admitted to the school, Long said.