You will never see Cody Endres take another snap for UConn. In fact, I doubt he'll even be on the team next year. That's the message I got loud and clear today from UConn. Obviously, his suspension is not a good sign. Neither is the fact that his partner-in-crime from August Erik Kuraczea left the school the day before Endres' suspension was announced.
However, there is something even more telling that is screaming to me that Endres won't be back. Now, this theory will take me down speculation road, so be aware of that, but if you're willing to join me, you're more than welcome on the journey.
Here's the thing, the athletic department at UConn doesn't typically leak information to reporters if it doesn't want to. Just look at how UConn handled the basketball team's response to NCAA quiet, it did. UConn finished the report a full month before it hit the press, and then it was because UConn chose to release it. You might say that's just the basketball team, but I'd point you to the suspensions of Endres and Kuraczea earlier this year. Sure, based on what we all know about UConn's policies it was pretty clear there was a drug violation, but no one in the media was able to confirm that for the record. The closest anyone got was Jeff Jacobs implying that it was a drug issue.
But today was different. It wasn't long after UConn announced the suspension that ESPN's Joe Schad was reporting it was related to the substance abuse policy. The Courant quickly got their own sources to confirm it. Not long after that, the Greenwich Times was reporting not only that Endres tested positive for marijuana use to merit his first suspension, but that this suspension was triggered by a positive test for an amphetamine.
Now remember, this is all speculation on my part, so I could be wildly off base. It is certainly possible that the reporters covering UConn have developed new sources with looser lips in the past two months, but I tend to doubt that. To me, this amount of detail coming out this fast means someone wants it to come out, and if Endres had any sort of future with this program, that wouldn't be the case.
This is kind of unrelated, but it does bear mentioning that a week and a half ago, with the UConn football team set to start its Big East season in a nationally televised game, the basketball program stole their spotlight by releasing its response to NCAA allegations. Today, the football team repaid the favor, by announcing that starting quarterback Cody Endres would be suspended for the rest of the season shortly after the Big East media day wrapped. That, along with a plane flight from New York to Chicago, meant that my plan to flood you with basketball coverage got derailed. Not to worry, I have about four or five things in the pipeline still coming your way. Hopefully I'll get some of it out the door tomorrow, and it'll definitely be done by Friday, so look forward to that.