That’s the premise of a gap year. She doesn’t go to school. She spends the year rehabbing her body and brain(which was also damaged) at home. She concentrates on herself. She just had another surgery and doesn’t appear to walk all that well yet looking at the video from her making a token appearance in a game in January. Is she ready to go to a large campus where you constantly have to be walking all over the place when classes start in August? She’ll still likely have tons of rehab appointments this fall too. Not easy to fit those in with a full academic schedule. As a student athlete she would have to take at least 12 semester hours each semester her first year.
The gap year idea would provide tremendous value for her academic career. And potentially give her a buffer for an athletic career if she can ever have one. Ideally by the time she starts in 2024 her rehab appointments would be limited so she can spend more time focusing on being a student, and eventually a student athlete. That would allow her eligibility to last through the end of the 2029 season. It doesn’t make sense to start her eligibility clock this fall when she couldn’t play even if she wanted to. A gap year followed by a redshirt year gIves her 3 years between her accident and the first game which is hopefully enough to get strength, coordination, agility, basketball skills, and confidence back.
Yes, she misses out on a potentially exciting year of being on the team. But for her academic and future career success, which is significantly more important for her as she’ll likely never be a multi-million dollar pro player, it makes sense.
