Why the world's tallest teenager got snubbed by his college basketball team for this season

Olivier Rioux, the 7-foot-9 Guinness Book of World Record holder, was recently snubbed by his college basketball team, Florida, to maintain his full eligibility. 

The world's tallest teenager has received chants from Gators fans at the team's recent home games to be put on the floor despite being out of Florida's core rotation of players. 

Florida head coach Todd Golden has now revealed that the plan for Rioux is to redshirt him, meaning he cannot play for one official second of the season without losing one full year of eligibility. 

'I should have made that clear (before),' Golden said. 'Honestly, it's put him in a tough situation. He's sitting over there at the end of games and everybody's yelling at him and trying to get him out there.' 

'They just hadn't understood that that was our potential plan for him. So that's where we're at at this moment.'

'I'm not saying that's 100% going to be the plan. We'll continue to talk to him and see if he changes what he wants to do. But as of right now, that's the plan that we're going to have with him as we move forward.'

Rioux first came to notoriety in a world-record sense as he was 6-foot-1 at age 8 and 6-foot-11 in sixth grade. 

Height does not necessarily mean Rioux can compete with the best of the Southeastern Conference, yet.  

'I was just explaining to him, "Hey, the reason why I'm not putting you in right now is what we've talked about a little bit." This wasn't a choice that I made for him,' Golden continued. 

'This is something that people (from) our program have talked with him and his family and his parents, his AAU coach and just kind of trying to figure out what the best route for him is'

'I just went up to him, and I was like, "Hey, I'm not trying to be disrespectful with you. I'm just not trying to burn your year putting you in for 30 seconds."'