The NCAA won a road game Monday. An Alabama judge denied University of Alabama basketball player Charles Bediako’s petition for an injunction that likely would have allowed Bediako to play the rest of the season despite Bediako signing multiple NBA contracts and having played in the NBA’s G League. By denying the injunction, Judge Daniel […]
The NCAA won a road game Monday.
An Alabama judge denied University of Alabama basketball player Charles Bediako’s petition for an injunction that likely would have allowed Bediako to play the rest of the season despite Bediako signing multiple NBA contracts and having played in the NBA’s G League. By denying the injunction, Judge Daniel Pruet probably gave similarly situated players — in multiple sports — second thoughts about trying to mount a legal challenge to try to come back to college after going pro.
“The plaintiff failed to meet the first three elements required for the court to issue the preliminary injunction,” Pruet wrote.
Pruet wrote that Bediako — who played five games for the Crimson Tide after being granted two 10-day restraining orders — could not prove he could be irreparably harmed if he didn’t get the injunction because Bediako can calculate exactly how much income he’d lose if he wasn’t allowed to play for Alabama this season. Bediako still can sue for that amount, but the NCAA doesn’t have to allow him to play while that case moves through the courts.
Pruet also wrote that Bediako couldn’t prove there was no adequate legal remedy if Bediako wasn’t granted the injunction. Pruet went on to name the legal remedy — winning a lawsuit in which the damages equaled the amount of income lost.
Pruet also noted that Bediako’s attorneys couldn’t prove the center was likely to win on the merits of the case. Pruet wrote that Indiana (where the NCAA is headquartered) might be a more appropriate venue for his antitrust claim. Pruet also wrote that Bediako couldn’t prove his tortious interference claim was likely to prevail because Bediako entered into his financial deal with Alabama knowing his return violated NCAA rules.
Pruet also wrote that he didn’t want to be the one to open the floodgates for other athletes to attempt a similar college comeback. “…the court believes it likely — if not inevitable — that the court’s issuing of the injunction would be used by other plaintiffs before other courts as evidence of the defendant’s arbitrary and capricious enforcement of its rules.”
And while the NCAA has a storied history of arbitrary and capricious enforcement of its rules, Pruet correctly pointed out that the organization has been quite resolute regarding the rule that a player who leaves an NCAA sport to enter a professional league is not allowed back. Alabama coach Nate Oats has pointed out repeatedly that players who come through European pro leagues — which tend to have their own academies because those countries don’t have the same high school and college sports infrastructure — are treated differently with regard to their pro status, but those players didn’t play in college as Bediako did when he spent two seasons at Alabama before entering the NBA draft in 2023.
The ruling probably was cause for celebration at NCAA headquarters and at various conference offices. And while Oats had been a staunch defender of Bediako, most coaches across multiple sports dreaded the idea of a world where players unhappy with their prospects in the pros could simply return to college sports if their five-years-to-play-four eligibility clocks remained ticking.
Basketball coaches were the most immediately concerned. Former UCLA player Amari Bailey, who unlike Bediako actually played games in the NBA, has said he would like to challenge the NCAA’s rules and return. The same likely would happen in football after the NFL draft and after the first round of cuts if players who left college with eligibility remaining were unhappy with their draft status. Baseball, meanwhile, could have been the messiest situation of them all.
The coaches would have complained had Bediako been granted the injunction, but nearly all would have taken players in similar situations if they thought those players could make their teams better. That’s why Oats played Bediako. (Alabama went 3-2 with Bediako in the lineup, beating Missouri, Texas A&M and Auburn and losing to Tennessee and Florida.)
Bediako’s loss doesn’t mean his case is dead. He could continue to pursue it. But the reason for seeking an injunction in state court was the perceived home court advantage, and the injunction would have allowed Bediako’s attorneys to milk the clock long enough to get him through this season. Though the NCAA got hammered in federal court in antitrust suits regarding player compensation, the governing body has found more success defending its eligibility rules against federal antitrust challenges. So some plaintiff’s attorneys have filed in state court, hoping for friendlier venues. Would a judge in Tuscaloosa County really rule against a player who might make the Crimson Tide better?
Apparently, yes.
Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar adopted similar strategies, though their eligibility cases differ from Bediako’s and from one another’s. Chambliss has a hearing scheduled for Thursday in Mississippi’s Lafayette County. Aguilar has a hearing scheduled for Friday in Tennessee’s Knox County.
Will local judges prove sympathetic? Or will they also swat the plaintiff’s arguments away as Pruet did Bediako’s?
Category: General Sports
