Everything we know about Skal Labissiere's recruitment

There's a very good chance 2015 big man Skal Labissiere becomes a Kentucky Wildcat tomorrow night. To say Skal's recruitment has been bizarre would be an understatement and Gary Parrish's article about it earlier today brings up even more questions, so I spent my day charting Skal's journey from Haiti four years ago to his decision tomorrow night. January 2010: A catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocks Haiti. Skal and his family were trapped inside their home in Port Au Prince as it collapsed around them, stuck in the rubble for three hours before being rescued. Eight months later, Labissiere moves to Memphis, Tennessee through the Reach Your Dream (RYD) foundation, a nonprofit organization that identifies and relocates talented kids to America from disadvantaged countries. So, Skal came to Memphis because of the earthquake? Maybe, maybe not. Gerald Hamilton, who runs the RYD program, claims he had already heard about Skal's basketball talents and was working to bring him to Memphis, with the final paperwork going through five days before the earthquake happened; however, other articles suggest that Hamilton didn't know about Skal until afterwards, when Skal's parents decided they wanted to send him to the US. [CBSSports.com, Herald-Leader] August 2010: Skal moves to Memphis to live with Hamilton and his family and starts working on his game, enrolling in Evangelical Christian School. The buzz begins. October 2012: Skal takes his first unofficial visit to Memphis, who becomes the favorite in his recruitment November 17, 2012: Kentucky offers Skal a scholarship on the same day he puts up 17 points, 13 rebounds and 9 blocked shots in Evangelical's season opening win. November 2013: Skal injures his back, is forced to miss his entire junior season. July 2014: Skal mentions the possibility of playing overseas ala Emmanuel Mudiay. Gary Parrish reports that Hamilton has made inquiries as to whether or not there is a market overseas for a player like Skal. [CBS Sports] August 2014: Skal transfers to Lausanne Collegiate Prep, another private school in the Memphis area. Lausanne has a good basketball reputation and one five-star player on its roster already: Isaiah Stokes, the younger brother of former UT star/current Memphis Grizzlies forward Jarnell Stokes. The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) ruled Skal ineligible for the 2014-2015 season. Why? He practiced with Emmanuel Christian three times that spring:

But TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress said he’d been informed by ECS that Labissiere had practiced three times this spring, meaning he’d be ineligible to participate in basketball at Lausanne or any other Shelby-Metro school. The TSSAA is the Tennessee’s governing body for high school athletics. “If he transferred without the family having a bona fide change of address, he wouldn’t be eligible,” Childress said.

[Memphis Commercial Appeal] September 2014: The TSSAA denies Skal's hardship application. September 16, 2014: John Calipari visits Skal, who says “Let’s just say [the visit] went great!”   September 19, 2014: Skal takes an official visit to Kentucky, where he reportedly loves the mattresses. “It was nice. It was really impressive and the level of players he played with was impressive as well," Hamilton tells CatsPause.com's Chris Fisher, also mentioning a meeting Skal had with Rock Oliver about how to bulk up his thin frame. [CatsPause.com] https://twitter.com/OneBigHaitian/status/526898299203514369 October 27, 2014: Skal announces he will play for Reach Your Dream Prep this season. Reach Your Dream Prep shares the name of the foundation run by Hamilton, who also coaches the squad. Hamilton created Reach Your Dream Prep so that Skal would have a team to play on his senior year while still taking classes at Lausanne. A high-school athlete playing for a program outside of the school they attend is not unheard of. Findlay Prep, whose alumni include Rashad Vaughn, Kelly Oubre, and Anthony Bennett, isn't an actual school; its players attend Henderson International School. However, Reach Your Dream Prep could get Skal in trouble with the NCAA if it's not funded correctly. [NBC Sports] November 5, 2014: Reach Your Dream Prep postpones a game with the Memphis Mustangs because Skal is sick. An opposing coach agreeing to postpone a game because a team's star is sick is absurd, and raises even more questions about Reach Your Dream Prep. [92.9 FM Memphis] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="501"] Samuel Jean-Gilles (left) and Skal Labissiere (right). Photo via Memphis Commercial Appeal[/caption] November 7, 2014: Samuel Jean-Gilles, another Haitian refugee brought to the US with Skal by RYD, tells the Memphis Commercial Appeal that Hamilton moved him to Boston once he heard Jean-Gilles didn't have potential to be a Division I athlete.

“They [were] guardians for me and they don't want me anymore," Jean-Gilles told the paper. "So I guess he did what he had to do. ... If I was 6-feet-9, yes, it would have been different. I would have been [a Division I athlete], and he most definitely wouldn't [have sent] me to Boston. People know what he's trying to do. ... If this is really how he's trying to make money by using people, if that's really how he's doing it, I just feel bad for him."

[Memphis Commercial Appeal] November 11, 2014: The Sporting News' Kami Mattioli interviews TSSAA assistant executive director Matthew Gillespie about Reach Your Dream Prep. Gillespie says he's never heard of it and it's not a member school or an umbrella school recognized by the TSSAA, therefore Skal is ineligible to play in any of the state's postseason play or awards. Officials for the McDonald's All-American game tell Mattioli Skal is ineligible for that as well. Also, a request by the Sporting News into RYD's tax records shows the foundation cannot operate a school as its main or secondary function. [The Sporting News] November 12, 2014: Gary Parrish publishes an article quoting Memphis AAU Coach Keith Easterwood saying that Hamilton had contacted him within the last two years to ask how to make money off a basketball player and reports that the NCAA is already planning to investigate Skal's recruitment. [CBS Sports] November 13, 2014: Skal Labissiere announces he will attend __________.