When Saint Louis University recruited Dustin, Maguire his junior year of high school, he was excited that he could attend a college close to home in Edwardsville, Ill.
Now, at the end of his sophomore year, Maguire is looking forward to the fall, when he will start fresh at Northern Kentucky University.
Maguire and teammates Adam Knollmeyer, Anthony Mitchell and Marcus Relphorde are not returning for next year’s basketball season.
“I talked with the players and said, ‘Here’s where I see your situation: I think you have a better opportunity to play somewhere else,'” Head Men’s Basketball Coach Rick Majerus said in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s a numbers game. If I could have 17 scholarships, I’d keep all four. Again, they still wouldn’t play.”
Each had limited playing time this season and would have had even less next year, with seven incoming recruits.
Maguire was not surprised by the situation. He redshirted before the first exhibition game of the 2007-2008 season, after Majerus made it apparent he would not get much playing time.
Knowing he would have minimal playing time and wanting to pursue a masters degree, Maguire arranged with Majerus to redshirt at the beginning of the year.
Maguire attributes the rough transition to the recent change of the coaching staff.
“It’s never easy going through a coaching change,” Maguire said. “It’s more that we don’t really fit with his systems and his style of play. It is definitely in all of our best interests to leave.”
As of press time, Majerus had not returned calls. Still, Maguire said the parting was amicable.
“It is important that you enjoy what you’re doing, and I’m excited to start doing that at NKU,” he said.
Maguire said he is confident that juniors Kevin Lische and Tommie Liddell III will continue to lead the team next year. The two guards will return with junior Barry Eberhardt and freshman Paul Eckerle.
“It was definitely a mutual thing,” Maguire said. “It’s just the nature of business. College basketball is a big business with millions of dollars involved, and there are pressures coming from everywhere.”
