By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

HOUSTON Cougars transfer LJ Rose will not have to wait the customary season on the sidelines before he takes the court for his new programme this fall.

Rose’s father, Lynden, revealed to ESPN Tuesday that the former Baylor point guard has been granted a waiver which will allow the highly touted point guard to play immediately. He announced his intentions to transfer from Baylor in June and has spent most of the summer training in Houston under former NBA coach John Lucas.

The immediate addition of Rose to the Cougars’ lineup means Houston will also immediately have a strong Bahamian connection on the court with Rose, Mikhail McLean and Danrad Knowles.

It was an underwhelming freshman season at Baylor for Rose - a former top high school basketball prospect with Bahamian roots. He posted 0.9 points and 1.2 assists, in sparse playing time behind Big 12 leader in points and assists, Pierre Jackson.

“Family has always been the most important thing to me,” Rose told ESPN.com. “With my mother’s situation, [Houston] was the obvious choice.”

He told ESPN that his mother, Marilyn, has been stricken with lupus, one of his deciding factors in choosing to transfer.

At 6’4” 185 pounds, and a true point guard with a pass-first mentality, Rose was the ninth-ranked point guard in the class of 2012 by ESPN.com coming out of Westbury Christian Academy. He chose Baylor over Arizona, Memphis and Georgetown.

Rose is the son of Lynden Sr and Marilyn Rose and comes from a strong basketball bloodline following the success of his father and his uncle, Cecil Rose.

Lynden Sr played collegiately at Houston, where he was a member of Phi Slama Jama, and was selected by the Los Angeles Lakers in the sixth round of the 1982 NBA Draft. He went on to play professionally in the CBA and Europe and, at the national level, he played for the Bahamas in the 1991 Pan American Games.

Cecil Rose also played collegiately for the Cougars where he scored more than 1,200 points for the programme. He was selected in the 1978 draft by the New Jersey Nets.

Cecil was a member of the famous “Miami Jackson Five” which included Mychal Thompson and played for the Bahamas at the 1977 Pan American Games.

McLean saw action in 26 games with 11 starts with an average of 13.3 minutes per game.

A 6’8” forward, he averaged 2.4 points and 2.6 rebounds per game and shot 49 per cent from the field. He scored a career-high 12 points against Marshall and grabbed a career high nine boards against TCU.

McLean was recently presented with the Conference USA Winter Spirit of Service Award, one of 12 Conference-USA student-athletes to achieve the honour.

Knowles will make his debut for the Cougars after being ruled academically ineligible last season. He enters the year as a redshirt freshman. He was ranked 51st in the ESPN top 100, according to the ESPN with a scout’s grade of 94.

The 6’ 10” forward was 13th at his position in the state, 10th in the region and seventh in the state of Texas.