2015 Minnesota Recruit Jarvis Johnson Not Cleared To Play For Golden Gophers

According to a release from the Minnesota Athletic Department, incoming 2015 recruit Jarvis Johnson will not be cleared to play for the Golden Gophers.  Johnson suffers from a heart condition and as a result, he will not be able to play for the Gophers as originally hoped next season.

Johnson suffers from a condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  At one point, Johnson's heart stopped for at least eight minutes due to the condition.  He now uses an implanted defibrillator in his chest to deal with the condition.  This is a permanent condition for Johnson.

Unfortunately for the Gophers, this does appear to be a significant loss.  Johnson was rated as a 3-star recruit by 247Sports and was expected to contribute for a backcourt already losing key players in Austin Hollins and Deandre Mathieu.  Although Nate Mason will return for Minnesota, there is not much proven in the backcourt and now the team will have one less prospect to assist in this transition.

Despite not playing for the team, Johnson will attend the University of Minnesota on scholarship.  Pitino talked about Johnson coming to campus in the release.

"Unfortunately, Jarvis Johnson will not be playing on our team this season. However, we are extremely excited that he has decided to accept his scholarship and pursue his undergraduate degree here at the U, where he will also remain a part of our program. Jarvis is a tremendous young man, and we support him and look forward to having him here."

It will certainly be a tough break for Johnson and Minnesota, but Johnson will indeed receive a great education and nobody can argue with potential health and safety concerns if that was the issue.  Nonetheless, Minnesota will have even more question marks for next season as the result of this news.