Hari Hall Leaves JMU Basketball to Turn Professional
Keeping with what has become a sort of an unofficial (and unwelcome) offseason tradition, JMU announced that a basketball player has left the program. This time it’s Hari Hall, who has left to pursue professional opportunities. Professional opportunities in music, not basketball, by the way.
Hall is a member of the hip hop group Bocaj Crew and recently signed a recording deal with Atlantic Records. JMU, or any school for that matter, losing scholarship athletes to pursue rap careers is certainly not something you hear about every day. And an out of context “player leaves to become rapper” certainly sounds kind of crazy. However, according to reports, Hall’s family is struggling financially and he felt like he had to seize this opportunity to help out. We certainly can’t fault him for that and really wish him all the best.
Hall flashed a lot of talent during this past season as a freshmen. He only played in 19 games due to suffering a concussion, but averaged 5.8 points and 2.7 boards a game. He reached double-figures in scoring 4 times, including an impressive 15 point performance in the season opener against UVA. As the saying goes, he had tremendous upside.
This will inevitably hit a nerve with the anti-Brady crew. And there’s no denying that there is a pattern of players leaving the program under Brady. In this situation though, it really sounds like a guy just chose to take a chance on something other than hoops so he can help out his family. Good luck to him. He’ll be missed.
Hope he can transfer to a school closer to home. Sounds like a no-brainer in the short-term. A college degree could be the better long-term bet to help sustain him, his family and his career.
I recall earlier in the season hearing that his family wasn’t happy with Hall’s playing time. Perhaps that’s unrelated to this, but indicative of stories where families get too involved with the lives of these student athletes and want some kind of immediate gratification.
I was looking forward to his emergence next year as a significant
contributor. Oh well.
Best of luck Hari.
Okay, I’m calling BS on this one.
I have a hard time believing that Bocaj Crew, the rap group that has 148 followers on Twitter, zero (!) YouTube videos, and a staggering 53 SoundCloud followers was signed to one of the biggest record companies in the world.
Does not pass the smell test. Not a chance that his group got signed.
I appreciate all the love and I miss jmu dearly. Now I can help my family, and Fucc you Matt I make more money than yo whole family