Will Cade Mays, Joey Gatewood and Otis Reese be able to play this season?

That doesn’t appear likely based on recent comments from SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey.

During a Wednesday morning appearance on Birmingham-based 94.5 FM radio show “The Roundtable,” Sankey was asked to address the issue of these transfers — keep in mind, he was not asked about any specific transfers seeking waivers from the SEC at this time.

“If I’m clear, it’s about intra-conference transfer,” Sankey said on the show. “There’s a very direct rule that says to transfer from school A to school B in the SEC, they serve an academic year resident. There are a set of NCAA oddity exceptions and then in 2018, our membership created two more: one for grad transfers, and one for individuals on teams that face postseason bans. And people send in waivers, but, you know, one of the questions that should be asked is that what the commissioner going to do is, is why haven’t our members voted to change that rule?

“So we’re inviting people to campus knowing there’s a clear rule and now everyone points and says, ‘Well, you need to let people out of that rule.’ And one of the questions that’s real is, why is our membership not acted to change? And the answer is because we have to work together. We have to be respectful. Could it change? Should it change? Might we manage it differently? Those are questions still to be answered, but the real direct answer is, decades ago, and repeatedly since, the now 14 member universities of the SEC have said we think that rules are appropriate within our own conference.”

Sankey did a masterful job dodging that one.

His response doesn’t sound very promising for players and teams hoping for good news from the NCAA.