AMHERST - University of Massachusetts senior center Lari Ketner would use many words to describe this season, including trying and frustrating. The NCAA Administrative Review Subcommittee has added another one, and Ketner said he could live with it.

Lari Ketner UMass file photo

Final.

UMass announced Sunday its appeal for a waiver to allow Ketner to play a fourth year next season was denied by the subcommittee. Yet Ketner, who sat out his freshman year for failing to meet eligibility requirements, said yesterday he probably would not have returned for another season even if the NCAA had ruled in his favor.

''To come back and face the same type of defense and all the other stuff would have been nerve-racking,'' said Ketner, who was considered a potential NBA lottery pick before the season began.

A subpar campaign (he's averaging 10.5 points per game, off 4.5 from last season, and has been benched for poor performance) has made him one of the most maligned players in college basketball.

Having been bothered by double- and triple-teams, Ketner said he'd rather not face another season of such tactics. ''Constantly having two or three [defenders] hanging around you ... I probably wouldn't have come back,'' he said.

The NCAA allows partial qualifiers to gain a fourth year of eligibility if they graduate prior to their fifth year. UMass officials said Ketner, who is expected to graduate in May, was a non-qualifier.

Former UMass forward Tyrone Weeks earned the waiver last season, but coach Bruiser Flint said, ''At the time [Weeks was a freshman], you didn't have partial qualifiers. Either you qualified or you didn't.''

Flint said he did not expect Ketner to earn the waiver, which is one of the reasons he signed 6-foot-11-inch center Micah Brand from Milford (Conn.) Academy for next season.

You may think Lari Ketner isn't aggressive enough or doesn't shoot well enough. You may even think the University of Massachusetts men's basketball team, for whatever reason, sometimes seems to play better without him.

But you should also know the NCAA is shafting Ketner by not granting his fourth year of eligibility next season, whether returning would be in the best interest of Ketner (or UMass) or not.

Here's the deal in a nutshell: Ketner did not qualify academically to play as a freshman in either of two categories, entrance-exam scores or high school curriculum. That made him a non-qualifier, not to be confused with partial qualifiers such as Tyrone Weeks and Monty Mack, who qualified in one of the categories, but not both.

Partial qualifiers can get their lost freshman seasons restored in a fifth year, if they graduate on time in four - an arduous task for any major-sport athlete - and take courses in the fifth. Weeks did it, and Mack is on pace.

Waivers were sought that would have opened that option up for non-qualifiers Ketner and Temple's Rasheed Brokenborough, too. But the NCAA has turned them both down.

Here's something else you may not have known about Ketner: to attend UMass, he had to pay his own way that first, ineligible year. In 1995-96, a year's cost for tuition, books, room and board and other fees was $17,093.

Ketner happens to be very bright. All he needed was the opportunity. Seizing that, he's on schedule to graduate in May.

UMass compliance officer Jeff O'Malley says in theory at least, non-qualifiers have made greater strides than partial qualifiers by graduating. According to the NCAA's own academic expectations, they were farther behind when they started, and they caught up, anyway.

So why not reward them the same way by giving them their fourth season back, if they want to come back for it in a fifth, post-graduate academic year?

The NCAA said no. Originally, these restrictions were put in to encourage high school kids to work harder to qualify as freshmen, a pointy-headed approach that ignores that some kids blossom best when given the tools and atmosphere to succeed - which means once they get into college.

UMass coach Bruiser Flint is disgusted by the decision and the message it sends.

"It's ridiculous," he said. "Give me a break. This is a kid who went into his own pocket to pay for college and will graduate on time. How can you not reward that?"

Despite a disappointing season, Ketner still expects to be drafted by the NBA, so the NCAA decision hasn't shaken him because returning to UMass was always a distant second option.

But even if he winds up in the NBA, Brokenborough may not. And Kitwana Rhymer, the heir apparent to Ketner at center, is also a non-qualifier and not, at this moment, projected as an NBA player.

Players like Brokenborough and Rhymer need another year, and it may happen for Rhymer. The NCAA is reviewing legislation that would let non-qualifiers who graduate get their lost season back. The earliest it could pass is August, too late for Ketner but not for Rhymer, a sophomore.

The Ketner waiver denial penalizes someone who is exactly what the NCAA says it wants: an athlete serious enough about academics to pay for a year, graduate on time and show interest in coming back for a fifth year of studies while completing his full four years of basketball.

Whether Ketner will be better off in the NCAA, or whether it's time for UMass begin the post-Ketner era - these are moot points. He has earned the option. Next time you see those halftime ads extolling the NCAA's virtues, you may want to keep in mind how it treated someone who has lived up to what it says it wants.