{"id":7646,"date":"2015-04-06T21:06:09","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T01:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7646"},"modified":"2015-04-06T21:06:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T01:06:09","slug":"hari-hall-leaves-jmu-basketball-to-turn-professional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=7646","title":{"rendered":"Hari Hall Leaves JMU Basketball to Turn Professional"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JMU-RCH<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n