Some of you might be surprised and others not, but Bawa Muniru is leaving the IU basketball program. The details are in this release:

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana University men’s basketball coach Tom Crean has announced that center Bawa Muniru will leave the men’s basketball program and look to transfer to another institution where he can receive more playing time.  He will have three years of eligibility remaining.

He saw action in just 19 games a season ago and averaged 3.3 minutes per game.  He averaged 0.6 points and 0.7 rebounds.

“As a staff, we think the best thing for Bawa is to go to a program where he can play and continue his education,” said Crean.  “His desire for more playing time was very evident and we told him that his best opportunity to play the minutes he wanted to was likely going to have to happen somewhere else.”

Muniru will finish his summer coursework at IU.

“I feel it is in my best interests to pursue my basketball career somewhere else,” said Muniru.  “I have appreciated my time at Indiana.”

“We always want to give our players the best opportunity for growth as a player and as a person,” added Crean.  “He has worked extremely hard in the classroom and we appreciate all that he has done in representing the program.”

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One of the questions that is most frequently posed in the comments early on this season is, “When is the handsome man in the tie going to play more?”

Well, today is your lucky day, friends. In today’s press conference (video of the presser here and here), Herald-Times reporter Dustin Dopirak asked the following question of Tom Crean:

“When will you know it’s time for him (Bawa Muniru) to get at least a few minutes here and there?

And here is the answer:

“Well, he did the other day. I don’t look at it like that. I think anytime you go into the game with a predetermined mindset of your bench, it’s usually not a 50-50 proposition. You’ve got to let the game play itself out. There’s different situations that call for different people inside of the game. But as he continues to progress and build his own confidence, then I think his teammates will continue to have more confidence in him. But he’s just not at a point yet where he’s laid it out on the line from what we need from him defensively. And it’ll come. You know, Tijan, he wasn’t anywhere close to it a year ago either. And I don’t use that as an example just because they’re both from a different country, but because of the learning process. The learning curve has always got to get adjusted for guys. And right now we’re not trying to inundate Bawa with too many things other than for him to really come out and be a presence for us defensively and get people open. But it’s not like we’re out there trying to teach him eight different moves right now or you do this as a counter to that. We’re not trying to do that. We’ll do that in our individual workouts. But we really want him to just get that confidence to where he can go in and apply some real effects defensively and on the backboards.”

To this point, I think Crean’s approach with Bawa has been spot-on. He’s clearly not aggressive nor polished enough to play at a high level just yet and not many situations thus far have warranted putting him in the game. I would expect that he could get a little clock here and there the rest of the season, but clearly, Bawa has a long road ahead to become a significant contributor.

Rejoice, Hoosier nation. This man is now eligible to play basketball for IU this season:

A few minutes ago, Tom Crean dropped this on his Twitter account:

Moments ago we just learned that Bawa is completely eligible. If you see his smile as wide as it has ever been you will know why.

So yes: the NCAA has decreed Bawa’s lingering high school coursework is in shipshape, and he’ll be able to participate in game action now. Anyone else interested to see how his game fits in with Crean’s more up-tempo style of play this season?