As the college basketball season starts, numerous player eligibility cases are still moving through the court system, creating uncertainty for players and coaches.
Last week, the Ohio Supreme Court and a Kentucky appeals court left the protections in place for dozens of athletes, including college basketball players, to compete while their legal cases work out. Neither ruling guarantees these athletes can play for their whole sport’s season.
In the Ohio Supreme Court case, the ruling affecting the athletes does not include a date for the next steps in the legal case.
According to The Associated Press, the NCAA said in a letter regarding the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision that “[e]very minute played by an ineligible player is an opportunity deprived to an eligible student-athlete — sometimes in the pinnacle events of a season.”
“And it provides a significant competitive advantage to schools rostering experienced players who exhausted their eligibility,” the letter added.
In the Kentucky appeals case, the athletes’ attorneys must respond to the NCAA’s legal filing to block the injunction by Friday. After the attorneys respond, the Kentucky appeals court will consider the request. No decision date has been announced.
These lawsuits stem from the NCAA’s new eligibility rule, which allows athletes to compete for five seasons in a five-year period, rather than four seasons within five years. The NCAA said its new rule would not apply to athletes who exhausted their eligibility in spring 2026, including athletes from the high school graduating class of 2022.
The NCAA says these athletes used all their eligibility under rules that applied when they were enrolled in school.
The Ohio legal case has been moving through the court system since June, when college athletes filed a lawsuit right after the NCAA approved its new rule. The Kentucky legal case was filed in August.
According to prominent college basketball coaches, the ongoing legal cases add uncertainty to their teams’ rosters.
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo told reporters, “We still don’t have everybody on teams; we’re a month into school and guys don’t know if they’re eligible, or if this judge is going to make them eligible, or this governor is going to do this.”
“Can you tell that I’m not real happy about that? If you don’t, you’re not reading between the lines,” he added.
Arkansas head coach John Calipari said he couldn’t “imagine what a college sports fan is going through with all this chaos.”
“I know how challenging it is to be a coach and a player,” he said on social media.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected].
