Jamar Samuels, Kansas State's second-leading scorer and top rebounder, was ruled ineligible for the team's third-round matchup against Syracuse on Sunday because he violated NCAA rules by accepting $200 from a former AAU coach.

Was Samuels accepting the money to buy lavish things like a phone, clothes or a TV? No, he needed money to eat, and his coach was willing to help.

Samuels committed a violation, no question about it, but no one is debating that. The 22-year-old did what he had to do to eat, but that same action prevented him from leading his Wildcats in what resulted in the team's final game of the season.

His situation affected everyone on the team, but perhaps no one was more emotional about it than Wildcats head coach Frank Martin, as seen in the video below. 

Curtis Malone, the AAU coach who gave Samuels $200, spoke to CBS Sports recently about the situation:

Curtis Malone told CBSSports.com that he was unaware of the rule that he wasn't able to give money to one of his former players. "If I knew it and wanted to hide it, I would have done it differently. The kid's family doesn't have anything and he called me for money to eat."

Contrary to what many people think of college athletes on scholarships, they don't have it easy. Many don't have a lot of money for clothes and food, two essential things in life.

Consider the following from Tim Keown in his brilliant piece on the Samuels situation found at ESPN.com:

It might cause people to look up from their brackets and question the integrity of an enterprise that brings wild financial benefits to everyone but the talent. They might look at Jamar Samuels and see him as one of thousands who help their coaches make a small fortune, their schools millions and the NCAA billions ($10.8 billion in TV money alone) while they risk being publicly humiliated without explanation for receiving $200. They might take a closer look at a system that tells the players the brand of shoes and gear to wear because their coach and athletic department made a deal to sell off parts of their bodies in exchange for another chunk of change.

For the NCAA—an organization that makes millions of dollars on basketball—to not allow a senior to finish his career with his teammates in the NCAA tournament because he needed money to eat is an absolute joke and an embarrassment to the game.

The NCAA should be ashamed of themselves.

Unlike many other student-athletes who have been in trouble over the years and ruled ineligible, Samuels didn't break the law. There is no crime in a man trying to feed his family.

To make things worse, the NCAA refused to let the reason why Samuels was suspended take front and center during the CBS broadcast of the game he was forced to miss. After all, it wouldn't look good for the NCAA if the public knew the reason why K-State's best player wasn't participating was because he violated a rule by trying to feed his family, now would it?

The punishment Samuels was given didn't fit the crime. He needed to eat, a coach was willing to help him out, and he took $200, a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things.

The NCAA's rules system is severely flawed, and Samuel's story is further proof of why that's true.

His story must result in changes to some NCAA rules, because there is no way a hard-working student athlete like Samuels should be ineligible for March Madness because he took money from a friend so he could eat.

Samuels' career as a collegiate basketball player ended with him on the sideline, not because he was hurt, but because he violated an NCAA rule. All because he needed to buy food.

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Nicholas Goss is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report, follow him on Twitter.