Mark Few is trying to build a basketball team, and the NCAA is making that as hard as possible.
What follows is a good faith attempt to explain to your average college sports fan what has happened in courtrooms across the country and why the Zags still have roster spots they can’t fill the way they’d like yet.
Fair warning: a lot of what follows is still being decided in real time. This situation is moving fast enough that some of it may already look different by the time you read it.
This is the story of how the NCAA created a crisis entirely of its own making, how players are fighting back in courtrooms from Ohio to Colorado, and why college sports fans should be upset and baffled by all of it.
January 14-17 2026 — The first rumblings of the NCAA’s proposed five-in-five policy surface publicly at the annual NCAA convention in Nashville. The concept is relatively straightforward: instead of granting D1 athletes four seasons of competitive eligibility spread across five years, every Division I athlete would get five seasons in five years, with the eligibility clock starting at enrollment or their 19th birthday, whichever came first. No more redshirts, no more waivers, no more seventh-year seniors. A clean system replacing a broken one. In theory, the right call.
But the rule’s language makes clear that athletes who had exhausted their eligibility by spring 2026 will not be grandfathered in. That means one specific group — players who enrolled in fall 2022, played four straight years without burning a redshirt, and finished their careers that spring — are left out in the cold. Every class ahead of them got a free COVID year after the 2019-20 season was canceled, and every class behind them would now get five years of eligibility just because. This 2022 group, through no fault of their own, would get neither. Five years of eligibility, playing opportunities, and seasons to earn an actual income for everybody! Except for these kids. It seemed like the kind of thing that would get quietly fixed in the policy’s final language. It did not.
June 23, 2026 — The Cabinet votes unanimously to approve the five-in-five rule and it takes effect the next day. The NCAA’s position is essentially that players in the class of 2022 already received the full eligibility they were promised when they enrolled and the organization is under no obligation to litigate fairness in lost NIL opportunities under legislation that didn’t exist yet. It’s a bold position for an organization that had just signed off on a $2.8 billion settlement requiring it to share revenue directly with athletes for the first time. The NCAA was suddenly on record admitting athletes deserve a cut of the money they generate, but in the very same breath drawing an arbitrary line around exactly which athletes were allowed to collect it.
Courts across the country would spend the next six weeks reminding the NCAA that arbitrarily cutting off one group of athletes from a benefit every class around them received is exactly the kind of restraint on athlete compensation that’s been getting the NCAA sued, and beaten in court, for two decades. They didn’t listen the first time. They wouldn’t listen this time either.
June 24, 2026 — Within hours of the rule going live, a group of 24 athletes files suit in Hamilton County Court in Cincinnati, Ohio, assigned to Judge Christopher Wagner. They argue that when these players signed on to an NCAA school, the rulebook in place was the deal, and changing it after four years of decisions built around those rules is a breach of contract. Imagine if the NBA instituted the three-point line at halftime of a playoff game. That’s what the Ohio suit argued the NCAA had done. The NCAA, however, maintains the players got exactly what they were promised when they became D1 athletes in the first place, and nothing more.
July 8, 2026 — A second lawsuit lands in federal court in Denver. Twelve players led by University of Northern Colorado’s Brock Wisne and Minnesota’s Cade Tyson file before Judge Charlotte Sweeney. Whereas the Ohio suit argues breach of contract by the NCAA, the Wisne suit is built on antitrust law instead of contract law, and is structured from day one as a class action, so a win wouldn’t just cover the twelve named plaintiffs, but every class of 2022 athlete in the country who fits the same description, wherever they played and wherever they hope to play.
July 9, 2026 — Judge Wagner rules in Ohio, finds a clear contractual obligation between the NCAA and its athletes, calls the exclusion of the 2022 class “arbitrary and in bad faith,” and grants the injunction. He also isn’t shy about what he thinks the NCAA actually is, writing that it looks less like a voluntary membership organization and more like “a highly profitable professional sports league,” and noting dryly that the court is “under no illusion that academics play a role in the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief.” Everything could have ended there with a blanket eligibility waiver for all members of. the 2022 class. Instead, the NCAA’s public response: “We do not intend to change course.”
NCAA: 0. Judges who’ve heard this argument: 1.
July 17, 2026 — The NCAA appeals Wagner’s ruling to the First District Court of Appeals, then asks Wagner himself to pause his own order while that appeal plays out. He refuses, writing that “a stay of the PI Order is not warranted in this case” and telling the NCAA it has to live with the consequences of its own decisions. The injunction stands. The NCAA has now lost the same argument twice, in front of the same judge. The Ohio ruling triggers a wave of similar filings in state courts across the country.
In California, attorneys Ryan Downton and Darren Heitner — the same legal team behind the Ohio suit — file a state court injunction on behalf of yet another group of 2022 players. Among those joining is former UCLA guard Donovan Dent, who had announced his retirement from basketball weeks earlier. Gonzaga, which had pursued Dent heavily before he chose UCLA the previous offseason, is immediately in the mix. He is the best point guard available, and with the sudden departure of Mario Saint-Supery, the Bulldogs need one badly. It looks, briefly, like everything might work out.
July 31, 2026 — Two courts rule on the same day. In Nashville, Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles grants a temporary injunction to Jalen Washington, a forward who played last season at Vanderbilt, along with 18 other class of 2022 basketball players across multiple programs. Eligibility is awarded to the players named in the Tennessee suit. But Chancellor Myles goes a step further and also blocks the NCAA from enforcing something called the rule of restitution. The rule of restitution lets the NCAA retroactively punish a school if one of their players competed under a court order that later gets overturned on appeal. For teams interested, signing a player whose eligibility is later overturned would result in vacated wins, stripped championships, clawed-back TV money. Myles’ ruling takes that consequence off the table. If a school signs one of her 19 plaintiffs, that signing is safe no matter what happens on appeal.
Hours later in Denver, Judge Sweeney grants a preliminary injunction giving that entire class a fifth year of eligibility, the same basic relief the Ohio and Tennessee players already had.
Finally… every member of the 2022 class had been granted a fifth year of eligibility, a decision upheld in a federal court in a class action suit. We’re done, right?
Because what her ruling doesn’t do is protect schools from the rule of restitution. Sweeney’s order is silent on it entirely, and that silence effectively splits the class of 2022 into two tiers. Players actually named in a state court suit, like Tennessee’s, get real protection: Myles’ ruling explicitly blocks the NCAA from enforcing the rule of restitution, so a school signing one of her plaintiffs is safe no matter what happens on appeal. Everyone else, eligible only because they fall under Sweeney’s nationwide class certification rather than a named suit of their own, doesn’t get that same guarantee, not necessarily, and not yet. A Wisne class player is eligible on paper. Any school that signs one is still betting on an appeal it doesn’t control, unless and until Sweeney says otherwise.
The NCAA’s reaction to all of it: Chief Legal Officer Scott Bearby calls the Colorado ruling “egregiously wrong.” President Charlie Baker calls on Congress to pass emergency legislation. The NCAA has now lost in Ohio, Tennessee, and federal court in Colorado. They do not change course.
NCAA: 0. Judges who’ve heard this argument: 3.
That same night, Donovan Dent enters the transfer portal with a “Do Not Contact” tag. Gonzaga is widely reported as the frontrunner, and the path seems clear: Dent gets his fifth year, joins the portal, lands in Spokane.
It turns out to not be that clear.
August 2, 2026 — Colorado takes a sideways turn. The NCAA asks Judge Sweeney to clarify what her ruling actually covers, and she does: a fifth year of eligibility for everyone in the class of 2022, and nothing else. Eligibility, but no access to the transfer portal. Players who didn’t enter the portal back in April, before any of this litigation existed, are only allowed to return to their previous school for their final year of eligibility. Some players, like UCLA’s Skyy Clark and UCSB’s Aidan Mahaney, entered the portal in April on a bet that the courts would eventually side with them, and that bet paid off, they can transfer anywhere now. Donovan Dent didn’t make that bet. He was retired and out of eligibility in April. There was nothing to preserve.
So that’s where Dent sits. Fifth year granted. Transfer portal access refused. Rule of restitution status still unresolved. His only way back to basketball right now is via another year at UCLA.
The California suit he’s part of is the way out. If it rules like Ohio and Tennessee did, Dent goes wherever he wants. If it gets bogged down in oversight the way Colorado did, he’s looking at months of litigation for the right to leave a school he already tried to retire from once.
August 3, 2026 — The NCAA appeals the Wisne ruling to the 10th Circuit and moves for an emergency stay, which is immediately denied. Schools had already started signing players covered by the Tennessee ruling, since that eligibility comes with rule of restitution protection built in. Those dudes are good to go, fully safe from retroactive consequences on appeal. Wisne class players don’t have that. Judge Sweeney’s ruling in Colorado is silent on restitution, so signing one of them means real risk: sign a player today, lose the appeal in October, lose every win he played in, retroactively. Until Sweeney clarifies whether that protection extends to the Wisne class, schools are understandably unwilling to touch anyone who isn’t already covered by a named ruling like Tennessee’s. California is still undecided. Colorado remains silent on restitution and closed on transfer portal access.
It’s a mess, yes, and it gets worse.
August 4, 2026 — The Wisne plaintiffs file an emergency motion accusing the NCAA of blocking players from joining rosters in defiance of the court order. The filing includes a sworn declaration from Aislin Malcolm, a Robert Morris women’s basketball player: her old school filled her scholarship spot back in April, when everyone assumed her eligibility was done. She has a new scholarship and NIL offer waiting at a different Division I program, but she can’t accept it, because, like Dent, she didn’t enter the portal back in April, because she had no eligibility to protect at the time. So she won in court and still can’t play anywhere. Not at her old school, which has no spot left. Not at her new one, because she hasn’t been granted access to the transfer portal. Schrodinger’s fifth year.
Across every sport in Division I, players who won in court are stuck in the same place: eligible on paper, blocked in practice, and negotiating with schools that are weighing the same rule of restitution risk facing Malcolm and every other class of 2022 player whose eligibility came from Colorado’s nationwide class certification rather than a named suit of their own.
August 5, 2026 – Another day, another court tells the NCAA to get its act together. A judge in Georgia grants a preliminary injunction to 30 class of 2022 athletes, giving them immediate eligibility and, critically, free transfer access regardless of whether they entered the portal in April. Like Tennessee, the Georgia ruling also blocks the NCAA from enforcing the rule of restitution, meaning any school that signs one of these players is protected even if the ruling gets reversed on appeal. That makes three of four rulings (Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia) that take that protection off the table for schools. Only Colorado’s Wisne class (and, by extension, all class of 2022 players granted a fifth year of eligibility but not explicitly named in a state level court proceeding) is still playing without a net.
In Georiga it’s also the same attorneys, Ryan Downton and Darren Heitner, using the same legal argument in the same type of state court proceeding that produced the Ohio and Tennessee rulings. The NCAA has now fully lost in Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia and mostly lost in Colorado, as well.
NCAA: 0. Judges who’ve heard this argument: 4.
Four courts, four losses for the NCAA on the same basic argument. And nobody’s actually free yet.
Donovan Dent has his fifth year, but he’s only allowed to use it at UCLA unless the still-pending California case he’s named in breaks his way. His eligibility also still carries rule of restitution risk if its overturned on appeal. California is the one to watch.
As of early August, here is what needs to happen before any of this resolves. Judge Sweeney in Colorado has until around August 10 to rule on the NCAA’s emergency stay motion. If she denies it, the NCAA escalates immediately to the 10th Circuit. The full appeal could run for months. The California filing could produce a ruling any day, which is the specific thing Gonzaga fans should be watching, because if that goes the way all of the other state level suits have gone (minus Colorado), Donovan Dent can go anywhere that will have him.
The most likely outcome, going by a four-for-four record across four different courts, is that the class of 2022 keeps winning in state courts and eventually the NCAA runs out of judges to lose in front of. But that likelihood only holds if the NCAA starts behaving like a reasonable, contrite, responsible governing body that reads a room and cuts its losses, and nothing about this summer suggests that’s a behavior it’s currently capable of.
None of this had to happen. The NCAA could have waited until the following academic year to implement five-in-five. It could have grandfathered in the class of 2022. When Ohio ruled against it, it could have accepted the verdict. When Colorado, Tennessee, and now Georgia ruled against it, it could have issued a blanket eligibility waiver to all members of the 2022 class and ended the litigation overnight. It had the power. It still does. It has declined every time.
Regardless of how fans feel about student athlete compensation, the courts have been clear, all of them. The NCAA has for decades been acting in violation of federal antitrust law. Both state and federal courts have determined exactly this, repeatedly, since legislation was first proposed back in the Diego Pavia case in 2009. The House settlement, NIL, revenue sharing, etc… none of it was done out of generosity. Student athlete compensation was a court order begrudgingly doled out by an organization that would rather endlessly litigate than admit that student athletes deserve a cut of the profit they generate.
The college basketball season starts November 1, and it’ll open with rosters built by court order instead of coaching decisions, because an organization that had every chance to fix a predictable problem built into hastily implemented policy directives chose litigation over fairness at every turn. The NCAA will survive the season, but the players stuck in this limbo, and the competitive integrity of the sport itself, are the ones actually paying for that choice.
