CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – RaeQuan Battle transferred to West Virginia hoping to play basketball for the mountaineers, but that opportunity is proving to be more difficult than expected.

WVU released a statement on Monday saying “The waiver for immediate eligibility for West Virginia university men’s basketball student-athlete RaeQuan Battle has been denied by the NCAA, interim head coach Josh Eilert announced today. WVU will appeal the decision.”

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey says it’s an unfortunate situation.

“This should be about the best interest of RaeQuan and WVU,” he said. “I think the RaeQuan’s personal story is so compelling that I think this should be a real plus, no-brainer for the NCAA..”

Currently, the NCAA transfer rule allows players to transfer once within their undergrad career without penalty. Outside of that, players can submit a waiver request to transfer more than once, and Battle’s waiver request was denied by the NCAA.

“I take the anti-trust laws very seriously in our state, and once again we know that by delaying a year, that’s a year that they are not playing,” Morrisey said. “It means that their financial ability to earn resources obviously goes way down, and well, those are things that trigger competition laws.”

Battle started his career at Washington where he played for two years. He then transferred to Montana State University where he played two more seasons. But because he is a two time undergraduate transfer, he had to apply to the NCAA for the waiver to play this season.

“My hope is always that things get resolved the right way. I think its really critical that people need to know that antitrust laws need to be taken seriously,” Morrisey said. “We need a competitive playing field, but we really need to allow our kids to proceed and to have the best interest of the kid put first.”

WVU head basketball coach Josh Eilert said in a news conference on Wednesday that he is disappointed by the decision but still holding out hope for a positive result.

“It seems like a lot of these are being denied and then seems like your success rate has a lot more to do with the appeal process. I thought there were no holes in it, and it was pretty much a sure thing for RaeQuan, but I am still optimistic that they are going to do right by him,” he said.

WSAZ reached out to the NCAA for comment and they replied saying they could not comment on the specifics of transfer waivers.

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