Todd Golden had already retained enough talent for his Florida team to be a contender for its second national championship in three years. Then came another win, this one in a courthouse allowing guard Denzel Aberdeen to join the top-ranked Gators for his fifth college season.
“He has a great legal team that put an incredible argument forward, so we’re planning on having him and we feel good about it,” Golden said during Southeastern Conference basketball
media days.
These days, leading a major college athletics program requires a touch of legal proficiency alongside the Xs and Os. Lawsuits tied to player eligibility are crawling through courts across the country. Some target the NCAA's new age-based eligibility model, others the question of whether even minimal involvement with a professional American team equates to losing the now-lucrative chance to play in college.
It’s not stopping with the start of basketball season, either. The only thing certain now is volatility, with rosters changing by the week, even the day, at the bang of a judge’s gavel. Consider it an added test for frustrated coaches who were already scrambling to fill rosters in the era of free player movement through the transfer portal.
Even Aberdeen’s case, after he received a favorable ruling in September, is under appeal from the NCAA. For now, he’s good to go for the Gators opener Monday night against No. 14 Miami.
“They’re not going to say, ‘Oh, we have to end it by November 2nd so there’s clarity for the season,’” second-ranked Duke coach Jon Scheyer said when broadly discussing the eligibility chaos. “I think these cases are going to go well into the season. I think no question you’re going to have cases where certain players get an injunction, they’re eligible for a certain period, and then they’re not. And so how is that viewed from an NCAA Tournament standpoint?
“It’s going to be (unresolved) going into the season, which is the worst thing for the sport. Your roster should be set now.”
The lawsuits have largely centered around the NCAA’s adoption of a five-year eligibility model that is due to be fully implemented next fall. It will allow players to have five years of eligibility with the clock starting when an athlete turns 19 or graduates from high school, whichever is earliest.
That quickly led to lawsuits from players in the high school class of 2022, who began their careers in the 2022-23 season and completed four seasons of eligibility but are seeking that fifth year.
Then there was the added wrinkle tied to a once-unthinkable notion: players leaving college, signing with pro teams and then returning to college.
Those storylines enveloped the start of football season in September. The most notable example was LSU’s showdown with the Southeastern Conference in a bid to add at least two players who signed with NFL teams as undrafted free agents. That ultimately led the Power Four conferences — the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten and Big 12 being the others — to toughen up rules banning professional athletes from returning to college.
Now men’s and women’s basketball face the same urgent questions.
As of Thursday morning, the NCAA said there have been 200 lawsuits filed since the June approval of the age-based eligibility model with approximately 850 plaintiffs across all sports seeking eligibility for the 2026-27 season. More than half of those lawsuits (about 115) are tied specifically to the new eligibility rules, the rest to questions over involvement with professional teams along with all other case-by-case complaints.
There are 362 men’s and 62 women’s basketball players in the total plaintiff count. Of that group, nearly half (171 men, 30 women) have received some type of relief from the courts allowing them to play while the rest are currently ineligible.
Yet things can change rapidly, with players moving from one category to the other. Some are tied to lawsuits in more than one state. Some athletes who lost in federal court turned to state judges with their arguments. There is even a College Sports Litigation Tracker website.
Louisville women's coach Jeff Walz added forward Amiya Joyner as a fifth-year player for the seventh-ranked Cardinals after a favorable ruling in a Louisiana case. He figures just let her practice and play until told otherwise.
“She's good according to, I've got my ChatGPT, my algorithm,” Walz quipped. “And I just say: when anything new comes up, tell me. And it told me ... that her court case was OK, I guess.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issuing an executive order allowing a fifth season of eligibility for college players in his state from the 2022 class. That decision impacted some cases even beyond Ohio’s borders and prompted the NCAA to sue DeWine.
All of this is set amid the backdrop of efforts to pass the NCAA-backed Protect College Sports Act, a bill that has passed the U.S. Senate but is uncertain to pass the House. It includes a five-year eligibility provision along with some protections for the NCAA against lawsuits.
“You don’t know if guys who will be playing in November will be playing in December,” said Minnesota men’s coach Niko Medved, who has had leading scorer Cade Tyson practicing with the team in hopes of returning for a court-granted fifth year. “That’s where it gets really tricky.”
The cases keep churning with openers looming.
Just Wednesday, a Louisiana judge granted a request by lawyers for St. John’s transfer RJ Luis Jr. to temporarily block the SEC from punishing Luis if he’s added to LSU’s roster. Luis was briefly under contract with two NBA teams but never played in a game.
Meanwhile, forward Babacar Sane of No. 13 St. John’s faces a strange deadline. He played in the G League and signed a non-guaranteed training camp contract with the Utah Jazz in 2024 but never played. He has a temporary restraining order from a New York court allowing him to compete through a Nov. 9 hearing, guaranteeing him only two games.
Similar uncertainty follows N.C. State big man Ven-Allen Lubin and Texas Tech forward Darrion Williams; they’re plaintiffs in a Texas case seeking a fifth year of eligibility for this season. They’re clear for now, though the case is scheduled for trial Dec. 14, six weeks into the season.
“Once this was granted, I was just really grateful and I want to take advantage of this opportunity,” Lubin said, adding when asked about the cases nationally: “There’s just a lot so I can’t really keep up.”
Some cases check multiple boxes like No. 17 Kansas adding former Purdue star Trey Kaufman-Renn, who played four college seasons before being a second-round NBA draft pick in June and competing in the NBA Summer League.
The 2021 high school graduate redshirted his first season and didn’t sign an NBA player contract, according to his complaint that ultimately led to a preliminary injunction in his favor.
For now, he's set to play. That's about all anyone can promise.
“I find it very, very hard to consider how some people could be eligible and some people not eligible with the same type of lawsuit, but the eligibility is determined strictly where they filed the case,” Kansas Hall of Fame coach Bill Self said. “I don’t see how the way somebody was represented in a judge’s view in Colorado has anything to do with Ohio and why there could be more slack cut in another state or another county in which it’s filed and that kind of stuff.
“I do believe universal is the way that it should be, and if anybody’s eligible, I think they should all be eligible if they’re fighting for the same reasons.”
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AP Basketball Writer Dave Skretta and AP freelance writer Luke DeCock contributed to this report.
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