Former Panther vying for a second chance as a Buccaneer

New conference, new basketball coach, new court, all that and it was not enough to keep Deric Hill a Panther. Hill has left FIU and has signed to become a Buccaneer at Barry University.

Deric Hill helped lead the Panthers Men’s basketball team to another season that exceeded all expectations. Instead, Hill will look forward to continue where he left off, as a Buc.

In college athletics, as well as in the professionals, an athlete plays for a purpose. For many college athletes, they play for their scholarship. A signed contract that shows full support to such athlete that he or she will bring success to their respective program, while receiving aid to pay for their classes. Unfortunately for Hill, such support didn’t seem to come.

After closing out a season being named to the Sun Belt Conference All-Tournament team, as well as being named defensive MVP, Hill missed out on the Triple Crown and did not receive any scholarship offers. An action that made Hill realize there’s more to it than just playing basketball.

“I look at it as a business,” Hill said. “I just had to stick with it. I couldn’t say anything. I was just waiting patiently, then Barry offered me so I just took it before it was too late.”

To add insult to injury, after reaching the conference championship last season before falling to Western Kentucky, the Panthers may not even be in the tournament next season as they face a possible post-season ban.

“I already knew that was coming because of the guys we had the previous year,” Hill said. “They weren’t going to school or doing their work. When Isaiah [Thomas] got fired, I guess everyone just shut down and said forget it.”

During the tenure of former FIU coach Isaiah Thomas, the Panthers failed to reach the minimum APR score for the 2010-11 season. It is not official, but the score for the 2011-12 team is expected to also be below the minimum score of 900.

Even with the team headed into a new conference, led by a new coach in Anthony Evans, the ban was not much of a thought in Hills thought process for his future.

“It really didn’t have an effect,” Hill said. “If they would have offered me a scholarship, I still would have stayed.”

Having started 15 out of 32 games last season, Hill spent the first half of the season coming off the bench as a walk-on athlete before becoming a full-time starter in February. A walk-on is considered to be an athlete who is a member of a team, without the benefits of having been recruited by the school or given any financial aid or scholarship.

Many stories of walk-on athletes only go as far as a player becoming a member of a team, without actually seeing much playing time. Such as the story of “Rudy” in the early 90’s, Hill wasn’t considered a top-notch athlete for the Division one level. Though he did have the physical attributes, Hill still had to exceed expectations to fight for playing time over teammates who were on scholarship.

Hill will continue to fight to prove others wrong, but no longer will it be to receive recognition as a Panther.

“Well there’s some Division one type guys there,” Hill said. “Being division two, to me, doesn’t make a difference. It’s just a number. My expectations are just to take them as far as we can go, and I believe we can go far, to the division two tournament.”