On Sunday, ESPN.com reported that Memphis transfer Kuran Iverson has enrolled at the University of Rhode Island and will be eligible to play for them next season.
After his time at Memphis, Iverson will still have two-and-a-half years left of eligibility to play for the Rams and will also officially close the door on a Memphis career that came with a lot of promise and such little product on the court.
Iverson, cousin of former 10 NBA All-Star Allen Iverson, was heavily recruited coming out of high school two years ago from Hartford, Connecticut as he was ranked the no.5 small forward and no.28 player overall in rivals.com Class of 2013 and was ranked no.33 in the ESPN 100 for the 2013 class.
The 6-foot-7 forward never lived up to his billing as he failed to earn consistent minutes in his freshman season, only scoring in double figures once in the 2013-14 season, an 11-point game in a 101-78 win vs. Lemoyne-Owen College, and only played three minutes in the last nine games of the season coming in the NCAA Tournament round of 32 blowout loss against the Virginia Commodores. Iverson finished the year averaging only 2.5 points and 1.6 rebounds in 9.1 minutes a game appearing in only 19 games.
His sophomore season stats showed minimal improvement across the board, but Iverson still only averaged 4.6 and 1.9 assists in 11.8 minutes in 8 appearances for the Tigers this season.
However, his Memphis career would not last much longer as he was suspended by coach Josh Pastner for two games on Jan.6 for violating team rules. Things went from bad to worse for Iverson when retweeted the following tweet from a fan on Jan.7, “Josh Pastner is a fraud of a coach and uses players as scape goats due to his lack of coaching ability. Stop the fraud."
That was the final straw for the Tigers as a result, and on Jan.16 Memphis announced Iverson would leave the program.
“Kuran (Iverson) and I visited and he will be transferring at the end of the spring semester,” Pastner said in a statement. “We thank Kuran (Iverson) for his contributions to the program and wish him well in his future academic and athletic endeavors.”
In total, Iverson appeared in 27 games for the Tigers out of a possible 50 and averaged only 3.1 points and 1.7 rebounds in those appearances.
