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ruled him ineligible. "The rule is you have to establish a residency at a school," says John Varlas, who covers high school sports for the Memphis Commercial Appeal. "So even though Jarnell lived in the district where Southwind was, the Memphis school district, it was about 20 miles from Central High where he had established his residency for the frst three years of his high school career. The rule is that once you establish your residency at a school, that is where you have to stay unless there are some mitigating circumstances for a transfer, and he wasn't able to show mitigating circumstances." After the ruling, Stokes was left in basketball limbo. He couldn't go back to Central High, the only school in Memphis where he would have been able to play that year, because the ruling came down two weeks into the school year. He wasn't playing at Southwind and Oak Hill was off the table. It was his senior year, and he had nowhere to play. With no high school basketball available for him, Stokes realized he could graduate in December and enroll early in college. With a fve-star recruit now on the market for the second half of the season, college coaches honed in on Stokes. John Calipari wanted him badly, but gave scholarships to two former walk-ons at the beginning of the season and didn't have room on Kentucky's roster. Arkansas was interested, but because they run up and down for 40 minutes every game, they weren't a good ft for the bruising Stokes. Then there was Memphis. Many see playing for the Tigers as a rite of passage for the area's top high school players. In his frst three seasons at Memphis, coach Josh Pastner locked up city stars like Joe Jackson, Tarik Black and Adonis Thomas. While Memphis didn't have a scholarship available, Stokes was eligible for an academic scholarship, but wouldn't be able to play right away. That reality didn't stop Memphis fans from vilifying Stokes once he enrolled at Tennessee, a school with an available scholarship and the chance to play immediately. "Traditionally, a lot of the kids who have gone elsewhere, the kids that Memphis wanted, people have criticized them like they did with Jarnell," Varlas says. "When he decided to go to UT, you would have thought that he had really done something bad the way they let him have it on the message boards. "When Memphis was a possibility, they were praising him like crazy and then it was as if he became the anti-Christ. There was a backlash, because Tennessee rightly or wrongly, is considered a big rival. A lot of people say UT's basketball tradition is subpar compared to Memphis and people couldn't understand why he would go there over Memphis." Upon enrolling at Tennessee, the expectations for Stokes were minimal. Yeah he's a fve-star recruit, but he can't really help them this year. There's too much of a learning curve, people said. Additionally, while other coaches had promised Stokes immediate playing time, Cuonzo Martin told Stokes if he weren't able to help the team, he wouldn't play. Stokes spent his first few weeks on campus getting eligible. Then when he was ready to practice, he took off. "Nobody knew what would happen and then he got down there for the frst practice and he didn't have any idea what he was doing but he was just pushing guys around and everyone went 'Woah, but maybe that's a fuke, we will see what happens,'" says Wes Rucker, who covers the Vols for 247Sports.com. "Then in practices two and three he's still dominating the paint and he just could not be stopped down low. When he wanted to score, he did. He didn't play long spurts in practice, maybe five, six, seven minutes at a time but they said that 25 he was good enough to play and they'd put him in there and see what he could do." After only three practices, Stokes played in his frst game. He wasn't facing some cupcake team either. He was facing Kentucky, a team with six future NBA players and a frontline of Anthony Davis and Terrence Jones. This was the best team in the country. Most players would be nervous, afraid, intimidated. But not Stokes. He was the intimidator. He stepped onto the court and you could see immediately he was going to be a player. He was wide, strong and fearless. Most importantly he knew just how strong he was. He didn't bully anybody, but he got their attention while fnishing with nine points and four rebounds in a 65-62 loss. "It was three practices, and I was just ready to play basketball because I didn't want to sit on the bench," says Stokes. "At the end of the day, everybody has two feet and two arms, and I was just bigger than everyone so I was just ready to play. I wasn't really nervous or anything." Maybe he got lucky. Maybe it was just adrenaline. But the next week, facing another future NBA big man in Andre Drum-