I don't imagine in his wildest dreams that former Cedar Rapids Jefferson basketball player Jarrod Uthoff thought he would ever create a firestorm on the national stage about his desire to leave the Wisconsin program.

And so this developing story became a headline-maker on sports talk across the country. Wisconsin and Coach Bo Ryan were getting beat up over the treatment of this former J-Hawk, who had signed on at Wisconsin, asked for his release and had done things the right way, including academics.

So with all of this pub, it took the head man of the Badgers, Barry Alvarez, to step in, meet with the principals in the case separately, first Uthoff and then Bo Ryan, and make a decision.

In his tenure as A.D. at Wisconsin, Barry has been an action-taker, and today he took action, allowing only the Big Ten schools to keep hands off recruiting Jarrod Uthoff. Otherwise the field for Jarrod is wide open.

I said Wednesday on my K-Memory report that this small brouhaha had come to the point where it was time for Bo Ryan to cut his ties with Uthoff and allow Jarrod, in my view, to take whatever school he wanted.

And for Uthoff, the Big Ten is still a possibility. Under revised rules, he could go to Iowa as a walk-on, sit a year and then get a scholarship and become a full-fledged scholarship player for the Hawkeyes.

Also, there are more appeals available to Jarrod. One would be to the entire athletic board at Wisconsin, or he could appeal to the NCAA to try and get the Big Ten restrictions removed.

I'm sure Jarrod is fed up with appeals, but in athletics you have to have winners and losers. And in the world of eligibility, you have to have winners, losers and appeals.

In this case, Jarrod Uthoff, formerly of Cedar Rapids Jefferson, comes out the winner. And Bo Ryan, the head basketball coach at Wisconsin, comes out with the black eye.

And to Jarrod, here's hoping you consider deeply your next decision on where you want to play basketball, because in the main it's a one-and-out deal.

My best to you.

(Bob Brooks is sports director at KMRY and has been one of the leading voices of college and prep sports in Eastern Iowa for more than 65 years. He is a 10-time winner of the Iowa Sportscaster of the Year Award, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana in 2004. His sports reports can be heard weekday afternoons at 4:30 and 5:30, and Saturdays at 6:40 for the Hawkeye football wrap-up.)