Former Iowa recruit Ben Brust is now free to sign with Wisconsin or Northwestern. Or Iowa.

The Big Ten's committee of faculty representatives voted Friday to waive a league rule barring athletes from transferring from one Big Ten school to another and remaining on scholarship.

According to this story on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Badger Blog:

Wisconsin has won its appeal to the Big Ten Conference, opening the door for Mundelein (Ill.) High School senior guard Ben Brust to sign with the Badgers for their 2010 men's basketball freshman class.

Here's the comment I found most interesting from Walter Dickey, the chairman of the UW's athletic board:

“The other thing that has to be foremost here is student welfare. It is a free country. Although the conference has an interest in putting sound limitations on it, we should never forget that the welfare of the young people is what this is about.”

What a concept.

There was no good earthly reason why Brust shouldn't have been freed to be eligible to play basketball at any school he desired next school year. He signed on for something (someone, actually) at Iowa that no longer was there.

If Wisconsin is where he wants to go -- and you'd have to say Bo Ryan's offensive philosophies are pretty close to Lickliter's -- then so be it.

But Brust is visiting Northwestern next week, so that school could be in play, too.

Another one: Iowa. Brust will reportedly still meet with new Hawkeyes coach Fran McCaffery.