St. John's point guard Rysheed Jordan takes leave of absence

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24932234/st-johns-point-guard-rysheed-jordan-takes-leave-of-absence


By Sam Vecenie | CBSSports.com
January 2, 2015 9:07 pm ET

St. John's point guard Rysheed Jordan is taking an indefinite leave of absence, according to a release from the school.

St. John's head coach Steve Lavin announced that Rysheed Jordan is taking a leave of absence from the basketball program as he deals with personal and family matters in Philadelphia. Jordan, a 6-foot-4 sophomore guard, will not be with the team for Saturday's contest with Butler at Carnesecca Arena.
"Rysheed will take an indefinite leave of absence from our basketball program and will not be with the team as he focuses his attention on personal and family circumstances," said Lavin.

ESPN's Jeff Goodman was first to report the news.

It's unknown at this point what Jordan's personal matters pertain to. However, it is known that Jordan hasn't had the easiest past year in his personal life, as was outlined by Matt Breen here for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

His high school career ended like a dream. His college tenure started like a nightmare. In the span of 7 months, Jordan endured the death of one of his childhood friends in a police shooting, a double homicide that claimed his aunt, his mother's hospitalization, and a brief early season suspension.

Jordan was in France with the Red Storm on a preseason tour when he was alerted that one of his best friends, Aaron McDaniels, was shot and killed by a police officer in a North Philadelphia car chase. Jordan's new teammates stayed up late in their Paris hotel to help him cope.

Two weeks later he had to return to Philadelphia because his mother, Amina Robinson, was hospitalized. Jordan spent two days with his mother and missed another game.

By February, he was playing his best basketball of the season and St. John's was in the hunt for an NCAA tournament bid. The Red Storm visited the Wells Fargo Center to play Villanova. Jordan reserved 40 tickets for family and friends.

That night, he learned that his aunt, Niaja Kane, had been killed in a double homicide in North Philadelphia. Jordan stayed home to attend her funeral. He missed his third game of the season.

Hopefully Jordan can get everything in his personal life sorted out and return to St. John's, as the Red Storm are in the midst of their best season under Lavin. Currently, they're 11-2 and ranked 15th in the latest AP Poll (although that will drop a bit this coming week after the Johnnies' loss to Seton Hall). For his part, Jordan has upped his scoring average to 14 points-per-game to go with 3.9 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.1 steals.

This is a pretty big blow for a St. John's team that already is pretty low on depth as it is. The rotation tends to go 6 or 7 deep when including Jordan, so the Red Storm will likely need one of Felix Balamou or Myles Stewart to step into a bigger role.

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