By Logan Starkey
Professional Basketball Player and former Alabama Starter Charles Bediako was granted a temporary court order that allows him to suit up for No. 17 Alabama’s matchup against Tennessee this Saturday. Though temporary, this shows the NCAA’s waning power to govern itself and further blurs the line between what “college athletics” truly are.
The NCAA was quick with a response, saying in a press release:
“These attempts to sidestep NCAA rules and recruit individuals who have finished their time in college or signed NBA contracts are taking away opportunities from high school students. A judge ordering the NCAA let a former NBA player take the court Saturday against actual college student-athletes is exactly why Congress must step in and empower college sports to enforce our eligibility rules.”
Stunningly, in this statement, the NCAA admits that it has no power. They couldn’t stop Diego Pavia from returning to college football. They allowed Cam McCormick to get eight seasons of eligibility at Miami and Oregon.
They likely won’t be able to stop Trinidad Chambliss from returning to Ole Miss next year either. They put up no fight to stop 25-year-old Chad Baker Mazara from getting a sixth season of eligibility for seemingly no real reason.
These examples are not even the most egregious. For that case, look no further than Baylor basketball.
On Christmas Eve, Baylor was allowed to add former professional player James Nnaji to its roster due to the fact that he had never signed an official professional contract despite being drafted No. 31 overall in the 2023 NBA draft. Nnaji was professionally active as a member of FC Barcelona for 51 games. He was also moved twice via trade, once as filler to facilitate the Timberwolves’ and Knicks’ swap of Julius Randle and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Nnaji being allowed to play is ludicrous. Forget the fact that he was a professional player overseas. How can it be determined that someone drafted by multiple NBA teams wasn’t “officially” an NBA player?
The NCAA granted him that eligibility before it ever reached the courts.
Do they have no backbone?
No will to actually preserve the sports they “govern”?
They can claim to need the aid of Congress as they wish, but when you refuse to put up a fight in a case like this, you lose the credibility to say you have zero power.
The cherry on top of the Nnaji sundae?
Nate Oats response to it.
“I think it’s taking away opportunities from kids coming out of high school,” Oats said on SiriusXM’s SEC This Morning show. “But on a competitive level, if it’s allowable, and they’re going to be eligible to play and they’re better than the players that you can get, then you probably have to go after them.”
Oats himself disagrees with this process, but with a major weakness at center and projected starter Collins Onyejiaka done for the season, what does he have to lose?
The NCAA would love to blame Congress. They’d love to blame Alabama and Oats. What if the NCAA had fought the case of James Nnaji?
If they won, Oats wouldn’t have been able to even consider bringing in Bediako. If they lost, it would’ve opened a larger question than they likely wanted pursued in court, sure, but that is exactly what Oats and Bediako are doing now. That problem now is that the Bediako ordeal has brought that question to light, not even a month later.
Now, a Tennessee team on the ropes after a massive blown lead against a middling Kentucky team will face a 6’11 center who just averaged 10.4 points and 9.3 rebounds in a league full of grown men, many of whom have seen NBA action.
Don’t blame Alabama. Just as Oats said, he is only doing what is what he must to stay competitive in a world that allows this.
The NCAA is to blame. They’ve failed over and over again.
They control nothing.
They try to pin blame on teams or Congress, yet make decisions that alter the fabric of collegiate athletics on their own.
They failed to be ahead of the curve on NIL. They’ve failed to make the necessary adjustments since the institution of NIL. They’ve just plain failed.
The NCAA is embarrassing itself at every turn. They deserve every ounce of the blame for the state of what used to be amateur-based college athletics.