Derrick Caracter wants to play basketball this year and has made a decision to go to Oklahoma City University, according to Stacy Brooks, a professor in the Pan-African Studies Department at Louisville who has become an adviser to the 6-foot-9, 270-pound Caracter, a native of Fanwood, N.J.
“The last time I talked to him he had made a decision to go to Oklahoma City,” Brooks said Wednesday night by phone. “That was last week. I told him to hurry up and get on that and go.
“Right now I don’t know where he is. I sent a text message to him and he hasn’t texted me back.”
OCU coach Tommy Wade, whose team has won back-to-back NAIA national titles, said Caracter has not yet arrived on campus.
“He wasn’t considering overseas,” Brooks said. “I think he’s had offers from D-1 schools. The most important thing (for him) this year is to play and then be part of a team and feel like he’s needed on a team.”
Louisville coach Rick Pitino had given Caracter the chance to return for the 2009-10 season provided he met various academic and weight issues, but Brooks said Caracter did not think those were realistic.
“I think he got discouraged,” he said. “Although the agreement had been verbally made between him and Coach ‘P,’ he felt like the chance he was being given wasn’t really a chance. They really weren’t behind him.
“He thought it would be better for him to start at a smaller school so he can play at a smaller school and hopefully go to the next level.”
