Damontre Harris will not return to Florida in 2014-15

Center Damontre Harris will not return to Florida for the 2014-15 season, as first reported by CBS Sports's Jon Rothstein. Florida has subsequently confirmed the news.

This news is no surprise. It's the expected second piece of John Egbunu's transfer to Florida, as Harris was occupying the 13th and final scholarship allowable under NCAA rules that Egbunu will now be slated to receive. Sources had suggested, even prior to Egbunu's transfer, that Harris was on his way out.

And that's a shame, because Harris is a talented basketball player, and an occasionally brilliant interior defender, who never put together his life off the court in a way that enabled him to get on the court at Florida. He transferred from South Carolina in 2012, and sat out the 2012-13 season, but was arrested for failure to appear in February 2013, then suspended to begin the 2013-14 season. Then he all but disappeared on Florida's program in the fall, and was dismissed by Billy Donovan.

When he surprisingly returned in the spring, I was told it was under a set of stipulations much like the ones Scottie Wilbekin agreed to after his second suspension from Florida's basketball program in the summer of 2013. And without the infrastructure around him in Gainesville that Wilbekin had by virtue of being from Gainesville, Harris always had longer odds on making a full return.

Harris still should have two years of eligibility remaining, and should be able to transfer to a Division I school and play right away in the fall of 2014-15. We wish him, and the school that takes him, the best of luck on righting his path.