Walter Sharpe’s brief but tumultuous career at Mississippi State has come to a disappointing end.
Head coach Rick Stansbury dismissed Sharpe from the team on Jan. 16 after the 6-foot-9 forward/center missed another practice. Redshirt freshman forward Jerrell Houston was also shown the door.
“Walter and Jerrell have both been dismissed from the Mississippi State basketball team,” Stansbury said in a statement. “Both young men are good people, but unfortunately things just didn’t work out for them here. We wish them both well in their future endeavors.”
Sharpe averaged 9.3 points and 5.0 rebounds in six games for the Bulldogs this season. He missed Mississippi State’s first seven contests after being declared academically ineligible and was benched for disciplinary reasons in three other contests.
According to an article in The Clarion-Ledger, Sharpe will drop out of State and return to his native Birmingham, Ala., looking elsewhere to continue his basketball career.
Sharpe missed 11 of 24 games his freshman year, most because of suspension. He missed a team practice the day before Mississippi State traveled to Charlotte, N.C., to play in the NCAA Tournament and was subsequently left behind.
Houston, a 6-foot-8 Memphis native, averaged 2.3 points and 2.2 rebounds in 13 games this season. He broke a team rule at the beginning of the year and was suspended for the exhibition season as a result. Last year, he was suspended from February until the end of the season.
While the departures hurt the Bulldogs on the court, they have hurt some of the players off the court as well.
“Walt was my best friend,” said Bulldog forward Charles Rhodes. “It hurts emotionally because both my friends are gone. I just tell them to keep their heads up and try to encourage them.”
After the dismissals, only Charles Rhodes remains from the 2004 freshman class.
Along with the dismissals, the NCAA, the ruling body for collegiate athletics, is investigating a specific recruiting incident in the men’s basketball program. The invesitgation became public in mid-December.