Months of speculation regarding whether Shareef O’Neal was going to be a part of the 2018-19 UCLA Men’s Basketball team came to an end this morning with the announcement that O’Neal has signed a grant-in-aid and will be able to play when the season begins in November.
Some news outlets started reporting that O’Neal was not going to academically qualify for UCLA. On May 22, Tracy Pierson of Bruin Report Online reported that O’Neal “more than likely won’t qualify academically to enroll” at UCLA. He “has been making an effort to, indeed, become eligible, but recent information leads us to believe it’s unlikely,” Pierson wrote.