UPDATE: Notre Dame men’s basketball: Is Biedscheid staying or going?

Will sophomore swingman Cameron Biedscheid become the second player this week to leave the Notre Dame men’s basketball program?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

A source close to Biedscheid indicated early Monday afternoon that the former top-30 recruit has requested his release from his scholarship commitment to Notre Dame so he could explore a possible transfer.

That request has yet to be granted by Notre Dame. Biedscheid could obtain his release in the next day, the next week or the next month. The university is closed until Jan. 2. There’s also a chance that both sides could sort out everything to where Biedscheid remains at Notre Dame, where he is sitting out the season to preserve a year of eligibility.

Phone and text messages left for Biedscheid were not returned. Irish coach Mike Brey, who spoke earlier in the day about Biedscheid’s future, could not be reached for comment.

News of Biedscheid’s decision to sit out this season — and doing so has to be the player’s choice — did not surface until the evening of the first Irish exhibition game on Oct. 28. This despite the fact that Biedscheid had talked — and talked rather confidently — during media day weeks earlier of plans to have a big sophomore season.

How did he go from someone ready to soar to someone willing to sit? What about his game or his role or his place in the program was missing?

“I really don’t know if I would say anything was missing,” Biedscheid said Nov. 8. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

Brey answered it for him, saying that much of Biedscheid’s decision stemmed from a desire to focus more closely on academics.

Biedscheid then addressed any notion that sitting out the season was the first step toward an eventual transfer.

“Right now, I’m really just sticking to the five-year program,” he said. “I wasn’t really thinking about leaving or anything like that.”

However Biedscheid’s situation unfolds, it has been an awfully odd 24 hours around an Irish program that has long stressed stability and certainty.

On Sunday, leading scorer Jerian Grant announced on the school’s website that he no longer is a student at Notre Dame because of a recent academic misstep. Less than 24 hours later, news of Biedscheid’s potential departure surfaced, not long after Brey had talked in detail about the sophomore’s future at Notre Dame during a teleconference to discuss Grant’s future.

Confusing? Quite.

With Grant not available for the 2014 spring semester, Brey reiterated that there are no plans to bring Biedscheid back to the active roster. He had spent much of the fall semester away from the team — and did not accompany the Irish on any of their three road trips, including this past weekend to New York — so he could better concentrate on his academics.

“He’s been great,” Brey said last week when asked about Biedscheid. “I think his frame of mind has been good. His academic commitment was the first thing to take care of to end the semester well.”

Brey said Monday he wanted Biedscheid’s academic concentration to continue even without Grant.

Biedscheid appeared in 34 games last season, averaging 6.2 points and 1.4 rebounds. Expected to continue in his role as one of the main guys off the bench this season, the St. Louis native instead chose to sit.

And ultimately leave? Stay tuned.

TNoie@SBTinfo.com

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Twitter: TNoie@NDInsider