Why Former Pros Are Coming To College Basketball, And What Eligibility Issues They Face

The latest hurdle nan NCAA faces successful maintaining its eligibility rules: keeping erstwhile master athletes out. 

Frontiers explored successful lesser-followed sports for illustration assemblage tennis and lucky person been thrown into nan spotlight aft a brace of erstwhile NBA G League players committed to play assemblage hoops successful caller weeks. The first to make specified a move, African helping Thierry Darlan, had spent 1 twelvemonth successful nan NBA’s now-defunct G League Ignite program, past a 2nd splitting clip pinch nan Delaware Blue Coats and Rip City Remix earlier enrolling astatine Santa Clara. Darlan was granted 2 seasons of assemblage eligibility by nan NCAA. London Johnson, different erstwhile Ignite player, committed to Louisville soon after. Johnson spent 3 seasons successful nan G League (two pinch Ignite) and will enroll successful assemblage astatine nan extremity of autumn semester earlier playing nan 2026–27 season. 

The moves sparked uproar from assemblage coaches. Michigan State’s Tom Izzo called it “ridiculous” and “embarrassing” for nan sport. Kansas’s Bill Self said he had “no thought what we are doing” and quipped that his unit would telephone NBA teams to find players to enlistee disconnected of alternatively of precocious schoolhouse kids. Purdue’s Matt Painter was “at a nonaccomplishment for words” complete nan development. 

It’s not wholly clear wherever nan NCAA plans to tie nan statement connected who tin get eligible. Darlan and Johnson’s cases were unsocial because, while they had made money arsenic master players, they hadn’t gone done nan NBA draught and were still wrong 5 years of graduating precocious school. There was nary clear favoritism betwixt playing successful nan G League and playing for master teams successful Europe, which nan NCAA has go progressively lax successful allowing players from. Some coaches took that to mean nan statement was whether a subordinate had gone done nan draft, but a fistful of European players who person enrolled successful assemblage went undrafted arsenic automatically eligible prospects via nan NBA CBA. If those players would get cleared, why not players for illustration Bryce Griggs, TJ Clark and Kok Yat? All were antecedently ineligible for assemblage because they played arsenic pros successful nan Overtime Elite League, went undrafted and past played successful nan G League, but for illustration Darlan and Johnson are wrong their five-year NCAA eligibility clock.

An description of eligibility rules to let for those players to travel to assemblage wouldn’t wholly reshape nan sport. Essentially, what’d beryllium created is simply a mini carve-out allowing players who chose emerging pro pathways that now don’t beryllium (G League Ignite, Overtime Elite) owed to nan detonation of NIL deals successful assemblage to double backmost and play successful college. But increasingly, coaches and agents look intent connected pushing nan bounds of what nan NCAA tin and can’t enforce from an eligibility standpoint. 

According to Sports Illustrated sources, immoderate coaches and agents are exploring eligibility pathways for players who signed NBA contracts and successful a fewer cases, moreover played NBA games. Players for illustration Jaylen Martin (16 NBA games pinch nan Nets and Wizards) and Jazian Gortman (16 games pinch nan Mavericks past season) person popped up connected assemblage recruiting boards successful caller weeks, though their liking successful really matriculating successful assemblage is unclear. A fewer assemblage coaches person moreover started digging into nan anticipation of bringing players back to assemblage who antecedently near for nan NBA, arsenic agelong arsenic they’re wrong their five-year eligibility timepiece from nan clip they graduated precocious school. 

Take Trevor Keels, who played connected Duke’s 2022 Final Four squad arsenic a freshman and was drafted No. 42 wide that twelvemonth by nan Knicks. He has played successful conscionable 3 NBA games, but has been a champion successful nan G League. Does nan NCAA person nan expertise to forestall him from returning to college, enrolling astatine nan semester break and playing successful nan 2025–26 play starting successful precocious December aliases January? He’d beryllium successful his 5th twelvemonth of his five-year timepiece and would person played only 1 assemblage season. Most coaches SI spoke to are nether nan belief nan NCAA would initially norm a subordinate for illustration this ineligible, but fixed nan detonation of lawsuits against nan NCAA, could a subordinate successful Keels’s shoes writer and get an injunction to play?

This surge of players willing successful assemblage has upped NCAA commissioner Charlie Baker’s urgency for legislature action to shield nan statement from further litigation. In a missive sent to lawmakers shared by Yahoo Sports’s Ross Dellenger, Baker referred to courts’ “chiseling distant of nan NCAA’s expertise to enforce eligibility rules” arsenic “destabilizing” and “threatening.” 

“At nan NCAA, we do not want assemblage sports to go a landing spot for erstwhile master athletes aliases a abstraction wherever would-be pros compete for a decade aliases more,” Baker wrote. 

The 2nd portion of that connection (“would-be pros compete for a decade aliases more”) refers to challenges to nan aforementioned five-year eligibility timepiece and 4 seasons of title rules. Right now, a subordinate for illustration Darlan getting cleared for assemblage arsenic a 21-year-old is receiving only 2 years of eligibility, which astatine slightest maintains immoderate semblance of competitory equilibrium based connected age. If courts were to onslaught down nan five-year timepiece aliases limits connected nan number of years players tin play assemblage sports, nan floodgates would unfastened moreover further. And to springiness an thought of nan amount of lawsuits presently challenging NCAA authority, there’s an full website dedicated to search each nan litigation against nan NCAA. 

The consequence successful relying connected authorities involution is real, peculiarly successful a infinitesimal erstwhile nan national authorities is unopen down. But nan timepiece is ticking: The longer things go, nan much nan letter cover will beryllium pushed by teams hopeless for talent injections and nan much opportunities for a tribunal ruling to wholly flip things connected its caput again. There mightiness beryllium different avenues extracurricular of authorities involution to stem this tide (namely, immoderate benignant of collectively bargained eligibility rules pinch nan players), though those would besides return clip nan NCAA mightiness not have. 

While jokes for illustration Giannis Antetokounmpo tweeting astir hopping into Marquette’s rotation are alternatively unfeasible, it’s not a agelong to envision a superior push from erstwhile NBA players to get assemblage eligibility arsenic soon arsenic this winter. And really nan NCAA responds to specified a push could style what nan adjacent procreation of assemblage athletics looks like. 

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