The Baltimore Sun has the story (via the Korea Times). Jin Soo Choi is leaving Maryland.
According to the story, Choi was having difficulty managing basketball and academics — all while having a fairly tenuous grasp on the native language. Understandable. Funny, though, how these difficulties didn’t boil over until Choi found himself in Gary Williams’ doghouse. And make no mistake — poor Jin was receiving mail in that son of a gun. Just how far he had fallen became evident after Sunday’s UNC Greensboro blowout, in which walk-on Ersin Levent logged more playing time than Choi (five minutes to four).
The reasons for Choi’s exile probably had something to do with the fact that Choi, a vaunted shooter, almost never actually shot the ball when he got it, and when he did shoot, almost never hoisted up something that could be labeled non-errant. And forget about playing inside. Despite standing 6′7″, Choi would’ve had trouble posting up a used wrapping paper tube. Not a lot of meat on the bones there, if you get my drift. Not a lot of lead in the shoes. This season, Choi had averaged 0.8 points on 2-9 shooting in 5 mpg. So while it would mean one less body on the pine, I’m not sure Maryland’s bench will be any more affected by Choi’s absence than it was by his presence.
The loss of Choi’s game, though, will probably be far less lamented among Maryland fans than his cult status. As you may have heard one or eleventy million times, Choi was the first Korean hooper to land a D-1 scholarship. He was a favorite on the court and on campus, where he rode around on a large blue ox named Babe. One time, he was at this party, right, and someone had built this machine that could drive railroad spikes into the ground really fast — so fast, the inventor claimed, that it could outpace any man. But that very night, Jin Soo Choi saw to it that claim was disavowed forever. For truly, Jin Soo Choi was a steel-drivin’ man.
In any case, if he is in fact leaving, here’s wishing him the best. I’m sure we’ll see him at some FIBA tourney, or something like that, down the road. This could also free up another scholarship for the Terps. That would be useful. Win-win? We’ll see. Until then, we’ll always have the railroad.
With Jin Soo Kim Choi Sun Yung Moon gone, who are we going to point our fingers at?
Eric Hayes, my steely gaze turns to you. Time to step it up buddy.
Post script: While I was at UMD, I dated a girl whose roomate was one of Sun Yung Moon’s relatives. Her sister married one of his crazy sons. It was bad news for everyone involved. She once said to me, “After I’m done with college, I plan to never see my family again.” Yikes.
[...] not see game action for the remainder of the season (with the possible exception of Longwood). Gone as well is Jin Soo Choi, as are his binary code stat lines. Freshman Padgett continues his development. And of course, Dino [...]